Chapter 2
"Time travel?" said Will incredulously. "Time travel?"
Druitt's eyes narrowed as he looked at Will. The fool was bleating like a broken record, he thought to himself. How did Helen put up with these people?
It was now morning by normal standards and Magnus had assembled her team in the study to tell them of her intentions. She and Druitt had spent the early hours of the morning discussing endless possibilities of where and when Ashley could be.
"Magnus you're not seriously going to consider this," pleaded Will. "It's just not possible."
"I simply wish to explore all possibilities Will. Time travel has been neither proven nor disproved."
Henry looked worried and Bigfoot said nothing. "This is just too far out there," said Will.
"As far back as the Incan people there was a belief that space and time were a single concept. They called it Pacha. Nowadays we can even pinpoint a moment in space-time with Cartesian coordinates. Putting it into practice will be however, a tad more complicated than it sounds. Now, stop telling me why this is impossible and tell me how it is possible," said Magnus to her team. Henry, Will, Bigfoot and Druitt looked back at her. None of them had an answer.
Henry's heart ached as he saw how desperately Magnus wanted their help. He knew better than the others how much Ashley meant to Magnus. "Solar flares," said Henry, to the room in general.
"What?" asked Will.
"Solar flares. They can interfere with the electronics, mess up satellite links and cause interference in our computer systems."
"What does that have to do with anything?" asked Will.
"It takes 8 minutes for the light from the Sun to reach the Earth. That's 8 minutes of not knowing what's happened. It could have blown up 5 minutes ago and we wouldn't know a thing was wrong for another 3 minutes," said Henry. "You can only see what was there in the past. That's a kind of time travel isn't it? Well, the only one I've ever had any experience with." Magnus smiled a thank you at Henry. At least he was trying.
"Damn solar flares," he muttered to himself, thinking of the recent problems they had caused him and the seemingly endless recalibrations of the EM field.
Henry's valiant effort made Will feel slightly ashamed of himself. Yes, it was madness but didn't they deal with that every day? Why should today be any different? He got up and started pacing the room. Magnus recognized this as one of his thinking methods.
"Since joining the Sanctuary I've seen things I never imagined could be possible." He shook his head as though not quite able to believe what he was about to say. "Why shouldn't time travel be one of those things? For whatever its worth, and I honestly can't see how we're going to get anywhere with this, I'm in."
Magnus gave him a grateful smile. "Thank you Will."
"How do we go about even beginning to figure this out?" asked Henry.
"You must have something to start with," Will said hopefully to Magnus.
"We think we have the where that Ashley jumped to, we just need the when. That narrows it down somewhat."
"Still, all of time is kind of big don't you think?" asked Will.
Druitt glared at him. "We think it will be a time when the Sanctuary building exists. But at a time when the EM field does not. Narrow enough for you?"
Will looked a bit unsettled at Druitt's apparent bad mood.
Bigfoot growled, "She's in the future."
"What makes you so sure?" asked Druitt, breaking his gaze from Will.
"If she was in the past she'd have left a message for us. Or have gone to find Magnus in the past 158 years."
Henry looked surprised, "That actually makes a kind of sense. She'd have left a freaking great big message carved into the Sanctuary wall somewhere telling us to pull our fingers out."
Not realizing he was about to make Druitt's mood worse, Will said, "I guess we should start with a physicist. That is if we can find one crazy enough to help. But not too crazy that he's just, you know."
"Crazy?" offered Henry.
Magnus looked over to Druitt.
"No," said Druitt, correctly guessing what she was thinking. "No, he cannot be trusted."
"Who?" asked Henry.
"Tesla," said Druitt through gritted teeth.
"The vampire dude bent on world domination?" asked Henry. "At least he checks the boxes in the crazy category."
"And the physicist category," said Will.
"Do you think he'll agree to help?" asked Bigfoot.
"He will if Magnus asks him. Right?" said Will.
Magnus smiled warmly. It was like a spark had been ignited in her and indeed all of her team. She seemed more alive than she had been for a long time. "Gentlemen. It appears as though we have the beginnings of a plan."
Tesla.
Druitt shut his eyes as though the name gave him pain. "Dammit."