Time Tunnel: The Towers Read online

  The general’s associates and superiors were unaware that he had made command of Dreamland his top priority from the very first time he visited the complex in 2000 as vice chief of staff. He instantly seized on the facility’s potential—something that was lost on the other generals, who viewed the crazy notion of a time machine as little more than a harebrained scientific exercise. Even if it could be made to work, they saw no useful military application, as it could not be weaponized. While the possibility of witnessing the nineteenth century battle of the Alamo first hand might be thrilling for a historian, there was no benefit to present-day battlefields. The generals were much more interested in harnessing the unbelievable power of the Grays’ antimatter reactor, which had the potential to annihilate entire countries without the downside of nuclear radiation. The generals thought it amusing that, in an era of green consciousness, they were developing the world’s first clean doomsday weapon.

  General Craig knew there was much more to the Grays’ technology than the capacity to blow things up. In an age of terrorism, traditional warfare between countries with borders drawn on a map was as much of an anachronism as Civil War generals’ use of eighteenth century Napoleonic tactics against cannon and long rifles. Those generals routinely marched infantry regiments packed shoulder-to-shoulder into slaughter against the enemies’ artillery and Springfield rifled muskets with effective ranges as great as 400 yards. A devout student of military history, General Craig had learned its single most important lesson: victory belonged to the general whose strategy and tactics were as current as his weapons technology. The general knew that, with the introduction of time travel, the scope of the battlefield was no longer limited to three dimensions. There was now a fourth dimension.

  General Craig focused on Dreamland with singular purpose, waiting for his opportunity to barter for the command of a lifetime. When that opportunity arrived two years later in 2002, he snapped it up without hesitation. After wresting control of the complex, the general made his presence known from day one, when he fired the complex’s entire military senior staff. He replaced them with a relative few handpicked people—people he could trust. He upended the complex, reorganizing key civilian positions and personnel, and accelerating development tempo. He renamed the facility from “Dreamland” to the “Time Displacement Complex,” in order to focus the facility’s staff on its new mission. He increased the size of the complex by a factor of 10, completely overhauling it from a drab underground bunker into a utopia. To reduce his dependency on government funding, he secretly began to license select reverse engineered Gray nanotechnology to private enterprise, reaping a windfall cash reserve horded in offshore accounts.

  In the course of overhauling the complex’s operations, the general ratcheted up the facility’s secrecy to a new level. He leveraged his position and status to squeeze off access and communications to and from the complex. The general was now the sole gateway controlling the flow of people, materials and communication in and out of the facility. The only civilian the general permitted to inquire about the complex was the president, who still knew the facility by its former “Dreamland” moniker. Members of congress and others not authorized to know about the complex rapidly found themselves at the business end of a military investigation if they as much as speculated about the existence of the complex. Post 9/11 America was a paranoid place, and General Craig took full advantage of the climate of fear to become lord and master of the Time Tunnel. Now, six years after assuming control, his agenda was about to be realized.

  Time Tunnel Complex

  Area 51, NV

  July 23, 2008

  14:30 hours

  Julia drove Kyle along the curved mezzanine to a freight elevator. She clicked a button on the dashboard, the elevator doors opened, and they drove in. The elevator began to descend.

  “How would you prefer to be addressed, Colonel?” asked Julia.

  “’Kyle’ is fine,” replied Kyle, a little embarrassed about the deferential treatment he was receiving.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Kyle,” Julia said, smiling. “Please call me Julia.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you as well, Julia,” Kyle said, returning her smile. It had been years since he had been in the company of a pretty woman, and he suddenly felt self-conscious about his scruffy appearance.

  “So, I’m going to be giving you a lot of information in a hurry, since I have strict orders to get you cleaned up and delivered to Mission Control by 16:30 hours. Because we live in a Time Tunnel, we tend to be preoccupied with deadlines around here,” Julia said, giggling.

  “So the general wasn’t kidding about that?” asked Kyle.

  “No, he wasn’t,” replied Julia, her expression becoming more serious, “I can’t give you details…the general and senior staff will do that in your briefing.”

  The doors opened on Level 3 and Julia drove out onto the tinted yellow mezzanine.

  “This is Level 3, the living level,” explained Julia, “This level includes staff quarters, food, restaurants, shopping, recreation, movie theaters, schools, churches, medical facilities, our park, and more. I’m going to take you to your quarters now so you can tidy up.”

  “How many people work here?” asked Kyle.

  “Approximately 10,000 people live here, though not all of them work here,” replied Julia. “Some are children.”

  “10,000! How big is this place?”

  They turned into a corridor, one of several spokes leading away from the main mezzanine circle. Julia took the turn a little too fast, squealing the cart’s tires.

  “Sorry,” Julia said, “I’ve got a lead foot.”

  The corridor was very wide—more of a road than a hallway, with high-speed moving walkways for pedestrians and lanes for electric carts and Segways. Bright yellow doors to living quarters dotted the corridor. People and carts buzzed through the thoroughfare, along with rolling droids delivering groceries and goods purchased from local shops. An occasional dog was walking on leash, headed to or from the park at the center of the living level.

  “Approximately twenty million square feet—about ten Empire State Buildings. There are an additional three levels below this one. Level 1 is administration, which includes offices and meeting rooms, Level 2 is science, which includes labs, offices, and more. Level 3 is living. Level 4 is food processing where we grow and process all our food. Level 5 is engineering, which includes power generation, utilities infrastructure, water, waste processing, manufacturing, and various shops for repairs. Level 6 is the Time Tunnel and mission control. That will be covered in the briefing,” explained Julia.

  They took a turn down another corridor. Though Kyle had only seen portions of two corridors, the complex already seemed endless.

  “This is a city!” exclaimed Kyle.

  “It is a city,” replied Julia. “It’s a completely self-contained city. We don’t require anything from the outside. We grow all our own food, recycle our waste, and manufacture everything we need.”

  “Why are there kids here? That seems strange,” said Kyle.

  “The Time Tunnel is designed to be a multi-generational facility, so there are families here,” explained Julia. “As to the reasons why it’s multi-generational, I think I should leave that for your briefing.”

  Julia pulled the cart to a stop at Q99—Kyle’s domicile.

  “Here we are,” said Julia, “I’ll give you a quick tour of your new home.”

  She took a lanyard off her neck with a plastic card and handed it to Kyle.

  “This is yours,” Julia said, “It’s the key to your apartment and your credit card to buy whatever you need at shops and restaurants. Money doesn’t mean a lot here—you can get whatever you need, but the administrative people like to keep track of things anyway because that’s their nature.”

  She touched the card on a reader on the front door. The latch made an electronic growling sound and opened. She handed the card to Kyle and walked in.”

  Kyle wa
s amazed. He was expecting bare essentials military barracks. What he got instead was a luxurious split-level townhouse with a spacious living room, kitchen and a view of… the ocean?

  “You’re probably wondering about the view,” smiled Julia.

  “Actually, I was,” replied Kyle, marveling.

  “We’re deep underground, and we’re going to be here for a long time, explained Julia. “The designers were concerned about the effects of bottling up thousands of people in a closed space for years. This was one of the ideas they thought up to minimize cabin fever. It’s a very high resolution LCD display that looks like the view from a window. You have them on several walls in your apartment. You’ve got a choice of exterior views. I like this one—it’s the west-facing view from the island of Moorea. If you like, you can listen to the surf. It puts me right to sleep after a long day.”

  Kyle wondered what Julia’s definition of “long time” was.

  The townhouse was spacious—Kyle estimated 3,000 square feet. The walls were taupe with white trim, The floors were hardwood, with occasional Persian-style rugs in strategic locations. The furnishings were arts & crafts wood and leather.

  “The rest of the apartment is pretty straightforward,” continued Julia. “Your bedroom and master bath are upstairs. We’ve taken the liberty of stocking your closet with several changes of clothes. You can get whatever else you need in the arcade. There are food and drinks in the kitchen. There’s a big screen TV and stereo as well. You’re lucky—only senior staff get apartments this big.”

  Kyle’s head was swimming. This morning, he had woken up in a cramped, dingy Tribeca studio apartment on the lower east side. Now he was standing in his luxury townhouse in a Time Tunnel over 200 feet underground.

  “I’m going to leave you for a bit and pick you up a little later for your appointment with the barber. Don’t worry about the shave—they’ll take care of that. You can also have a mani-pedi if you like,” Julia said, with a wink.

  “I’ll be back at 15:30 to pick you up—ok?” Julia asked.

  “Sure—Thank you,” Kyle said, feeling dizzy.

  “Don’t worry,” Julia said, “It’s a lot to take in at once. It’ll get easier. If you’ve gotta live in a cave, this is definitely the way to do it,” she laughed.

  Kyle took a long hot shower and changed into khaki slacks and a black V-neck long sleeve shirt. He noticed the feel of the fabric was unusual. When Julia picked him up, she explained that the clothes were made from a mix of recycled paper and cloth—like dollar bills, but with a higher cloth-to-paper ratio. At the Time Tunnel, they didn’t launder clothes; they recycled them.

  Julia drove Kyle to the arcade and gave him a speed tour of some of the shops and restaurants. In addition to restaurants that were unique to the Time Tunnel, there were familiar chains, such as McDonalds and Starbucks, though those chains were managed and staffed by Time Tunnel personnel. The Time Tunnel’s cheerful feel was anything but standard Army issue. It was all part of the designers’ vision to create a world where humans in captivity would be content, even happy.

  Time Tunnel Complex

  July 23, 2008

  16:30 hours

  Julia drove Kyle to a freight elevator at the end of a corridor on Level 3. Once inside, she swiped her keycard on the reader and pressed a red button for Level 6.

  “Level 6 is secure access,” Julia said. “Your keycard has clearance.”

  The elevator descended. Kyle could feel the pressure build on his ears.

  The elevator doors slid open on Level 6, revealing an anteroom with a steel vault door and an armed guard. Another authentication panel, identical to that found at the complex main vault door, was placed next to this door. Julia authenticated in with her face scan and voice code. The big door unlatched and began to swing open, with bright blue LED strobes flashing on the door’s perimeter.

  “This is where I get off,” said Julia. “Go right in. They’re waiting for you.”

  Julia turned and left. Kyle walked through the vault door entryway into a mission control room. The room was approximately 150 feet wide and deep and configured in an arena theater-style configuration, curving six mezzanine levels of workstations in a concave shape. A theater-size array of giant screens mirrored the concave mezzanines in a reflecting curve. The walls and furnishings were graphite gray. The wall coverings were a gray corduroy-style carpet material. The room was quiet, absorbing echoes. Blue-tinged bright white LED lighting illuminated the room.

  Each workstation included its own computer consoles and displays. Small signs identified group functions, including: “Temporal Core,” “Temporal Navigation,” “Reactor,” “Timeline Analysis,” and “Biometrics.”

  Some workstation groups were configured in semi-circles—apparently these were for use by team members that needed to collaborate with one another. Kyle noticed that the hive of workstations clustered around the “Timeline Analysis” sign also included a large rose-colored translucent light cube with the letters “TVA” on four sides. In center of the tier-3 mezzanine was an isolated workstation under the sign “Mission Director.”

  The giant curved LCD panels at the front of the room were dark, with the exception of a blue hourglass graphic, the date, time, and a status message: “TDS Offline.”

  At the floor of the room, in the large convex well left between the giant displays and the front row of workstations, was a large black oval conference table. A dozen people sat at the table, including the general.

  “Over here, Colonel,” waved the general.

  Kyle walked down the mezzanine steps to the group. The general had changed out of his uniform into khaki pants and a black long sleeved business shirt. He sat at the center of the large conference table, his back to the giant screen. He and the other people seated at the table rose to greet Kyle, with two exceptions—an old man with wispy white cotton candy hair seated in a wheel chair and a petite woman in her late 30s with banged brunette hair pulled into a ponytail. While the other members of the group smiled as Kyle approached, the woman glared at him with palpable contempt.

  Kyle shook hands and exchanged names before taking a seat at one end of the oval table. When Kyle extended his hand to the petite woman she ignored it, creating an awkward moment.

  “Seriously, General?” the woman said, scanning Kyle’s withered physique, “This is the very best we can do?”

  “Colonel Wise,” General Craig snapped back at the woman, “I’m going to clue you in on a little secret: you know my rank of full general? That didn’t happen because of pure dumb luck. There are times when I really do know what I’m doing.”

  “Yes sir. Sorry sir,” replied the woman, diminished. “Sorry,” she tossed offhandedly to Kyle, not meaning it.

  “Have a seat Colonel Mason. Everyone, you know why the colonel is here, even though he doesn’t yet,” began General Craig. “Let’s start by going around the room—please state your name and title.”

  A middle-aged woman with salt & pepper hair, wearing a lab coat said, “I’m Lara Meredith. I’m Chief of Life Sciences.”

  The old man with fluffy white hair in the wheelchair and tinted glasses was next, “My name is Gunther Appel. I am Chief of Physics,” he said with a kind smile.

  Lara was seated close to Gunther and looked at him affectionately as he spoke. They appeared to be a couple.

  A pale middle-aged man with a full brown and gray beard and a checkered shirt was next, “Roger Summit. Chief Historian.”

  A young Asian woman next to Roger said, “Aysha Voong. I’m also on the history team.”

  A middle-aged Cuban-American man with a square jaw, a flattop haircut with white-stripe temples and a very serious expression said “Gus Ferrer. Mission Director.” He wore a Polo shirt that was a little too small, accentuating his pecs and powerful tan biceps. To Kyle, the combination of Gus’ chiseled body, striped hair, and mean expression gave him the appearance of a superhero. The general had recruited Gus from DARPA, the DOD’s Defense Ad
vanced Research Projects Agency, where Gus had successfully run big cutting-edge defense development projects ranging from the spacefaring X-37 Orbital Test Vehicle to the satellite-killing High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS). Gus was known for two things: 1) bringing projects in on time, and 2) not having a sense of humor.

  The next man was the Chief Technical Officer, “John Kaomea.”

  A colonel in uniform seated next to the general said: “Bob Jones. I’m an advisor to the general.”

  The last to go was the woman who had gotten the meeting off to such a bad start. “Colonel Annika Wise. I’m your team mate...”

  “…unfortunately,” Kyle read the glowing neon thought bubble over the scowling woman’s head.