Chapter 46
Six Days, One Hour, Fifty-One Minutes
Sitting behind his desk in the subterranean offices of 'Darlington Industries,' Senator Arthur Pendley kept busy at work, reviewing the progress reports and research data that had been prepared for him. Belinda – his secretary – stopped in to fill his coffee and deliver another stack of statistical analyses for him to review, but, otherwise, he was left completely alone in the elegant steel and glass chamber he had specially constructed to his personal designs. Here – sealed within a vault one hundred feet below the ground – Pendley would be safe in the event of any nuclear catastrophe. The materials – after all – were top secret and highly classified and only available through a single source: extraterrestrial. Once his position within the government intelligence elite had granted him access to the materials surrounding the events that took place in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, he knew what he must do, and he had made it his life's work. Of course, Roswell was only the first recovery, the only event of cosmic significance made aware to those within the NSA as well as the personnel of Project BackStep. In 1949, there was the unrecorded event outside Colorado Springs, Colorado. In 1953, it happened again in the wooded territory outside Spokane, Washington. In 1955, a dozen saucers crashed in Salida Del Sol, New Mexico, and the materials recovered – sadly, the occupants had all perished in the catastrophe – eventually provided the first steps toward Darlington's construction.
Throughout the rest of the 1950's, 60's, and 70's, Pendley knew of seventy-seven separate Otherworld Incidents (O.I.'s, as they were called by the response teams sent to retrieve any and all substances left behind). After his stint with Special Forces in 1977, Pendley returned home, a local hero, and he was easily elected as a junior senator from the state of Virginia – one of the last few sacred states that truly valued military service. It was his assignment to the United States' Senate Committee on the Investigation of Foreign Intelligence (he always smirked at the irony of 'foreign' meaning 'alien' amongst those 'in the know') that opened the doors to what he knew about Roswell, Otherworld technology, and the beyond. Time travel, he learned, was hypothetically possible. As a matter of fact, there was a group of scientists holed up within Area 51 working on harnessing the science behind the Roswell craft. Apparently, the aliens traveled from their world to ours not so much by the use of distance as they did by bending time – they plotted courses from one point in the universe to another, and they merely traversed the distance in its temporal relationship with the activation of a complex series of time shifts. Pendley didn't insist on understanding the science behind it; he only wanted to know how it could be used to his advantage.
The 1980's brought a wealth of additional extraterrestrial material to Earth – there were, literally, hundreds of undocumented crashes (it would appear that traveling through time was even more treacherous than traveling across matter) that had provided a vast storage of material for his dream project: Darlington. In total secrecy, he began construction – with the use of several black budget companies – in the subterranean levels of the Heston. However, it wasn't until recently – within the last two years – that the arrival of Larnord, the Mallathorn, signaled a possible path for Pendley's journey. As events unfolded, Larnord was more and more forthcoming on the principles of time travel, and Pendley at last was able to accelerate his planning to some final stages ... because he had a vision.
The government, of course, had been using time travel to correct what the NSA or the President or his Cabinet had deemed a 'correctable event,' and Pendley scoffed at their short-sightedness. Stopping a viral outbreak was one thing: possessing the technology to alter existence through the use of Mallathorn science was another. While Project BackStep was running around the word saving every cat that fell out of every tree, Pendley and his team were calculating weapons applications for time travel.
After all, why save the cat when the cat served no purpose?
Why not destroy the cat – and all those who love it – if there stands some gain?
Pendley sat back as he thought about the fall of the Soviet Empire in the 1980's. Years and years of build-up of weapons that now were fundamentally shelved – stockpiled in warehouses or airfields or military bases around the United States – resulted in no gain ... only the useless expense of resources. Imagine if – through the use of time control – you could've prevented the Soviet Union from ever existing? Countless billions of dollars could have been salvaged and spent on other programs – domestic defense, continued space exploration, the pursuit of a democratic manifest destiny. The possibilities were endless, and, sadly, the pinheads in control through the last two decades didn't have the vision to make use of such technology for the expressed purposes of making the United States the only superpower in the world. Instead, they squandered it away, used it to place hundreds of intellectuals and specialists to work studying the probabilities of altering time, of harnessing a mechanism that, inevitably, only allowed them to step through the door of existence and walk backward seven days ... seven days ... seven days ...
'What could you do with seven days?' Pendley thought.
He shook his head. It was – if ever there were one – a political travesty. It was a mockery of the potential of human history. Using time travel as an existential band-aid was one thing; using time travel as a weapon to enforce the sovereignty of the American people was another ... and Pendley was going to do just that. It would, as the years passed, make him a very powerful man. He could have anything he desired, but all he wanted was to serve his country. Those who opposed him would be eliminated. He would simply have them removed from existence in the most horrific means available to him ... not because he was a villain but because it was the right thing to do.
The intercom buzzed, and he tapped a button.
"Yes, Belinda?"
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir," she replied officially, "but Dr. Watanabe is ready for you in the Cubicle."
He smiled at the nickname he had given Project Kupher's command center. 'The Cubicle.' It referred to a small working space ... but, oh, the things that would inevitably be done from that post were anything but small.
"He's prepared for the first test?"
"He didn't say specifically, sir," she said, "but he did say that he would like to review several possible targets with you."
Smiling, Pendley reached down to the side of his desk and retrieved his briefcase. Opening it, he found the manilla folder that contained a single page – adorned with the crest of the White House – and he took it firmly in hand as he rose. He wouldn't be debating any list of possible targets with Watanabe. Now wasn't the time for debate. Now was the time for leadership, and, as leader, Pendley knew he had to send a message. Time was on their side, so he knew that – whatever message he had prepared to deliver – it had better be a good one.
He knew that this one – with this target – he would capture the attention of those whom he most desperately needed to understand. He was no longer going to be a senior senator from the state of Virginia.
With this target, he was about to become the most powerful man in the free world, and there wasn't a thing the most powerful military might in the free world could do about it.
"Tell Dr. Watanabe I'm on my way."
End of Chapter 46
Six Days, One Hour, Fifty-One Minutes
Sitting behind his desk in the subterranean offices of 'Darlington Industries,' Senator Arthur Pendley kept busy at work, reviewing the progress reports and research data that had been prepared for him. Belinda – his secretary – stopped in to fill his coffee and deliver another stack of statistical analyses for him to review, but, otherwise, he was left completely alone in the elegant steel and glass chamber he had specially constructed to his personal designs. Here – sealed within a vault one hundred feet below the ground – Pendley would be safe in the event of any nuclear catastrophe. The materials – after all – were top secret and highly classified and only available through a single source: extraterrestrial. Once his position within the government intelligence elite had granted him access to the materials surrounding the events that took place in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, he knew what he must do, and he had made it his life's work. Of course, Roswell was only the first recovery, the only event of cosmic significance made aware to those within the NSA as well as the personnel of Project BackStep. In 1949, there was the unrecorded event outside Colorado Springs, Colorado. In 1953, it happened again in the wooded territory outside Spokane, Washington. In 1955, a dozen saucers crashed in Salida Del Sol, New Mexico, and the materials recovered – sadly, the occupants had all perished in the catastrophe – eventually provided the first steps toward Darlington's construction.
Throughout the rest of the 1950's, 60's, and 70's, Pendley knew of seventy-seven separate Otherworld Incidents (O.I.'s, as they were called by the response teams sent to retrieve any and all substances left behind). After his stint with Special Forces in 1977, Pendley returned home, a local hero, and he was easily elected as a junior senator from the state of Virginia – one of the last few sacred states that truly valued military service. It was his assignment to the United States' Senate Committee on the Investigation of Foreign Intelligence (he always smirked at the irony of 'foreign' meaning 'alien' amongst those 'in the know') that opened the doors to what he knew about Roswell, Otherworld technology, and the beyond. Time travel, he learned, was hypothetically possible. As a matter of fact, there was a group of scientists holed up within Area 51 working on harnessing the science behind the Roswell craft. Apparently, the aliens traveled from their world to ours not so much by the use of distance as they did by bending time – they plotted courses from one point in the universe to another, and they merely traversed the distance in its temporal relationship with the activation of a complex series of time shifts. Pendley didn't insist on understanding the science behind it; he only wanted to know how it could be used to his advantage.
The 1980's brought a wealth of additional extraterrestrial material to Earth – there were, literally, hundreds of undocumented crashes (it would appear that traveling through time was even more treacherous than traveling across matter) that had provided a vast storage of material for his dream project: Darlington. In total secrecy, he began construction – with the use of several black budget companies – in the subterranean levels of the Heston. However, it wasn't until recently – within the last two years – that the arrival of Larnord, the Mallathorn, signaled a possible path for Pendley's journey. As events unfolded, Larnord was more and more forthcoming on the principles of time travel, and Pendley at last was able to accelerate his planning to some final stages ... because he had a vision.
The government, of course, had been using time travel to correct what the NSA or the President or his Cabinet had deemed a 'correctable event,' and Pendley scoffed at their short-sightedness. Stopping a viral outbreak was one thing: possessing the technology to alter existence through the use of Mallathorn science was another. While Project BackStep was running around the word saving every cat that fell out of every tree, Pendley and his team were calculating weapons applications for time travel.
After all, why save the cat when the cat served no purpose?
Why not destroy the cat – and all those who love it – if there stands some gain?
Pendley sat back as he thought about the fall of the Soviet Empire in the 1980's. Years and years of build-up of weapons that now were fundamentally shelved – stockpiled in warehouses or airfields or military bases around the United States – resulted in no gain ... only the useless expense of resources. Imagine if – through the use of time control – you could've prevented the Soviet Union from ever existing? Countless billions of dollars could have been salvaged and spent on other programs – domestic defense, continued space exploration, the pursuit of a democratic manifest destiny. The possibilities were endless, and, sadly, the pinheads in control through the last two decades didn't have the vision to make use of such technology for the expressed purposes of making the United States the only superpower in the world. Instead, they squandered it away, used it to place hundreds of intellectuals and specialists to work studying the probabilities of altering time, of harnessing a mechanism that, inevitably, only allowed them to step through the door of existence and walk backward seven days ... seven days ... seven days ...
'What could you do with seven days?' Pendley thought.
He shook his head. It was – if ever there were one – a political travesty. It was a mockery of the potential of human history. Using time travel as an existential band-aid was one thing; using time travel as a weapon to enforce the sovereignty of the American people was another ... and Pendley was going to do just that. It would, as the years passed, make him a very powerful man. He could have anything he desired, but all he wanted was to serve his country. Those who opposed him would be eliminated. He would simply have them removed from existence in the most horrific means available to him ... not because he was a villain but because it was the right thing to do.
The intercom buzzed, and he tapped a button.
"Yes, Belinda?"
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir," she replied officially, "but Dr. Watanabe is ready for you in the Cubicle."
He smiled at the nickname he had given Project Kupher's command center. 'The Cubicle.' It referred to a small working space ... but, oh, the things that would inevitably be done from that post were anything but small.
"He's prepared for the first test?"
"He didn't say specifically, sir," she said, "but he did say that he would like to review several possible targets with you."
Smiling, Pendley reached down to the side of his desk and retrieved his briefcase. Opening it, he found the manilla folder that contained a single page – adorned with the crest of the White House – and he took it firmly in hand as he rose. He wouldn't be debating any list of possible targets with Watanabe. Now wasn't the time for debate. Now was the time for leadership, and, as leader, Pendley knew he had to send a message. Time was on their side, so he knew that – whatever message he had prepared to deliver – it had better be a good one.
He knew that this one – with this target – he would capture the attention of those whom he most desperately needed to understand. He was no longer going to be a senior senator from the state of Virginia.
With this target, he was about to become the most powerful man in the free world, and there wasn't a thing the most powerful military might in the free world could do about it.
"Tell Dr. Watanabe I'm on my way."
End of Chapter 46