Project Tik-Tok
2031: Somewhere in Nevada
"Please fasten your seat belt, Senator Clarke, we're on final approach", the pilot announced to the Lear Jet's only passenger.
The Senator, in his fifties, put away the report in a ring binder along with other papers he was reviewing in a slim brown leather brief case. He looked out the window in surprise. He didn't see Las Vegas below as he expected on an approach to McCarren. This also wasn't Nellis AFB either. What lay below was a vast expanse of sand. Nothing but sand. The Lear, though never intended for such a landing, set down on a dry lake bed.
As it rolled to a stop, the copilot helped him with the air stair, and his luggage: the brown brief case and a suit case. He cast long shadows as this was early morning. He walked off a safe distance and the Lear began a take-off roll. Senator Clarke looked around. He was surrounded by hills and mountains in the distance. The thought occurred to him that it would be horrible to be stranded here.
He noticed another disturbance in the distance: a line of sand and dust. The cause resolved into a plain, green sedan. It pulled up, and Clarke passed his cases into the back seat where he joined a younger, taller man. They drove off, but toward no destination the Senator could see. The younger man picked up a hand set:
"Mobile Tik-tok One to Tik-tok base. Requesting permission to enter. Code: redline".
"Tik-tok base to mobile Tik-tok One: permission granted".
A door retracted to reveal a ramp. The sedan disappeared down the ramp with a jolt to the passengers. The retractable door closed, leaving no trace of anything artificial to any casual observer. The car rolled down a ramp before leveling out into an underground street that was well illuminated from above and along the sides of the walls.
The sedan rolled to a stop just outside a stairway. A military policeman stood beside the entrance. As the two men were getting out, the Senator with his briefcase, and his companion with the suit case, the only acknowledgment that they even existed was the patrolman's picking his M-16 off the floor by the barrel and holding it vertically. Up a short flight of stairs. Two more military police by the entrance.
"Dr Phillips", a Sargent greeted.
"Jiggs", Phillips returned the greeting. "Master Sargent Jiggs – the ramrod of our security... Senator Clarke".
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Senator", Jiggs replied as he attached a "Visitor" badge to Clarke's lapel. He reached for the briefcase, and Clarke pulled it back.
"Just routine security", Phillips explained, as he handed over the Senator's suit case. "This way, Senator"
Phillips led the way to an overpass that was wide enough for both pedestrian traffic and the electric carts that were also in use. Clarke preferred to walk down the middle, away from the sides. There was no railing, and the sides were barely hip height.
"Senator", Phillips called out while waving a hand to present something. While Phillips stood right beside the low wall, Senator Clarke stood back, and leaned over. It was one helluva drop to the bottom. The sides of this shaft had three half cylinders alternating with flat sides. There was a network of pedestrian overpasses, and numerous glass elevators going up and down.
"There are 12,000 personnel divided between the six complexes. Each complex is 800 floors deep", Phillips explained.
Clarke stood back: "Yannow, Phillips, every time I look over your budget figures I ask myself the same question: is time travel really worth all this?"
"The control of time is potentially the greatest treasure man will ever discover".
Clarke took one final look over the side: "It sure is one of the most expensive".
"This way, Senator", as Phillips led them across the overpass, and to a bank of elevators. They entered one.
"Hold on, we're going into free fall for 800 floors. There's much more to see down below".
Phillips wasn't kidding: the elevator dropped suddenly, leaving Clarke looking a bit green.
"It'll be over in a few seconds", Phillips reassured.
The magnetic arrestors kicked in, bringing the elevator to a gentle stop. The door opened onto another overpass.
From the opposite side, a two star general was approaching.
"An old friend of yours, I believe", Phillips said.
"Roy!", the general called out as he was coming forward. He extended a hand.
"Roy, sure has been a long time", they shook hands.
"Woody, how did they ever con an old dog face like you behind a desk?"
Woody turned to Phillips: "Worst paratroop officer I ever commanded. That's why I encouraged him to get into politics, so he couldn't hurt anyone".
Seeing the expression: "Awwww, c'mon Roy, that was meant to be a gag, not a dig…
"What's this about an inspection?"
"Well, Woody, I have an obligation to my constituents. One of those obligations is to see how their tax dollars are being invested".
"Of course… Come over here", Woody motioned for him to step to another too low for comfort wall. "You ever see anything like this in your life?"
They were overlooking the reactor that powered the whole complex, and the time tunnel.
"No, can't say I have. That's what I'm here to discuss".
"General", Phillips said, "I think Ted ought to be in on this. Where is he?"
"In the tunnel, this way".
They crossed the overpass, and into a much larger room. The central feature being the time tunnel.
"So this is the monster that's costing us all that money?", Roy said.
The tunnel looked to be at least fifty feet long and twelve feet tall. From their vantage point, it looked like a cylinder with a pattern of alternating, concentric black and white rings. The whole thing enclosed in a Faraday cage. In front of the tunnel, three consoles that could seat two operators apiece.
"Yes", Phillips agreed as he motioned for everyone to proceed.
As they stood before the maw of the beast, the time tunnel wasn't a solid cylinder, but a succession of white rings. The zebra stripe illusion due to the gaps being in the shadow of the Faraday cage.
"Well, Roy, what do you think?"
"A very expensive toy…"
"Hardly a toy, Senator", Phillips objected.
Roy walked off a pace: "According to all your reports all you've sent back in time are mice and monkeys".
"So far, yes", Phillips agreed.
"How do you know they didn't exit the far side of that thing as nothing more than gamma bursts and showers of subatomic particles?"
"If that happened, we would have detected the radiation".
"Have you ever returned any of these animals to this laboratory, safe and sound?"
"Not yet, no, but…"
"So far as we know, this whole project might be a very expensive disappearing act. Isn't that true?"
"Actually at this point in time…"
"You're guessing, Doctor, and so far your guessing has cost the United States government 75 billion dollars".
"Ted!", Phillips called into the tunnel, "Would you come out here?"
Ted came trotting back: "Doug!", he announced, "I think it's gonna work. I readjusted the polarization of the dist-field drive". He handed over the equipment he was using to do that adjustment. Phillips passed it to Woody.
"Senator Leroy Clarke", Philips did the introduction, "Doctor Ted Lupin".
"Doctor?", Clarke said as they shook hands. "Aren't you awfully young for such a title? Not to mention being the Number Two man of this project?"
"Don't let looks deceive you", Phillips said, "beneath that youthful, pretty-boy exterior is an old, white-haired genius struggling to get out".
"I'm glad you were interested enough in our project to pay us a personal call, Senator".
"Let's just say that I don't like the idea of scrapping a multi-billion dollar project by sending a memo".
"Scrap!", Lupin called out in shock and surprise.
"Ted, the Senator doesn't believe our experiments have shown enough progress to warrant the time and money invested", Phillips explained.
"But we're so close now!", Ted objected.
"Close to what, Son?", Clarke asked.
"Why sending a man back in time and returning him, of course".
"Then do it. No more promises, boys. I want a fact I can grab hold of".
"When?", Phillips asked.
Turning to Phillips: "You and the General have been on this project for ten years".
Turning to Lupin: "And you for almost seven. I say the time is now"
"You mean today?!", Woody said.
"That's right, because I'm flying back to Washington tomorrow to either write you a blank check… or cut your umbilical cord".
"Roy!", Woody called out.
"We are not ready to risk a life", Phillips objected.
"Doug, let me try…", Lupin started.
"Absolutely not!"
"So you're just gonna give up? Is that it? Doug! We put our lives into this project!"
"I am not willing to become a potential murderer, and I refuse to allow you to become a potential suicide victim just to meet a budget. That's not the answer. That's not even science".
Ted grabbed his testing device roughly from Woody's hand and stalked off.
"Seems a little emotional for a scientist", Roy observed. "Anything else you want to show me?"
"Plenty", Doug promised.
"Roy, we haven't even begun", Woody said as he led Roy onwards.
0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Ted Lupin saw everything slipping away. He always suspected something like this might happen, and had planned well in advance. He used the Shrinking Charm to bring along everything he believed he'd need in a trunk no larger than a match box. After hours, Ted approached the entrance to the tunnel main floor.
"Excuse me, Dr Lupin, you're not supposed to be here", one of the MP guards challenged him. It was well after hours.
A subtle flick of the wrist, a silent Confundus, and the eyes of both guards glazed over. He tried his card key, but it wasn't working. He cast a Disillusion and Notice-Me-Not charm on himself.
"Alohomora", he cast the unlocking charm, and the door slid open. Inside, the lights were off, the only illumination from the master control room above the main floor.
Over to the first console on his left. He powered it up, and set his geographic and temporal co-ordinates. Over to the middle console to sync the time tunnel. The far right console controlled the reactor that powered the tunnel. He dialed in the power level he'd calculated would take him when and where he wanted to go.
He stepped to the mouth of the tunnel, looked up to the main control room, pleased to see the charms were working. They suspected nothing. He waited for the capacitor bank to fully charge. Then he trotted down the tunnel. Now that it was powered up, it as well as the rest of the room, looked miles long. An illusion that was a visual artifact of the tunnel's warping space-time. He trotted down the seemingly infinite tunnel until he came to the last ring.
There was an explosion of light. His charms dropped, and Doug and everyone up there became aware of Lupin's fiat accompli.
"RED ALERT! ALL TIME TUNNEL PERSONNEL TO THEIR POSTS ON THE DOUBLE"
The klaxons went off, setting off a flurry of activity.
Doug and Woody arrived, there were still some sparks and arcs down the tunnel.
"Ted…", Doug started.
"Doug, can't you stop him?", Woody asked.
"Not now, he'd burn alive". He turned to call out: "George, start the countdown"
"16… 15… 14…"
"Pray it works", Doug said.
"What's happening to him?", Roy asked the female tech by his side.
"He's entered the radiation phase, the first step in his relocation", she answered.
"… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1"
There was another bout of sparking and arcing.
"All right: start a relocation probe", Doug called out orders. "Jarrod: see if you can synchronize a time curve. Ray: give us the power density. Ann: see if you can find out what specific radiation he used".
"I'll try", she responded.
"Where is he?", Roy asked.
"He could be living in yesterday, next week, or a million years from now", Doug explained.
"How do you know?"
"You got your guinea pig, Senator…", Phillips said sharply.
"Doug…", someone called out.
"OK go ahead and take a sock at me if that'll make you feel any better, but I'd still like to know what's going on", Roy said.
"Ted just finished enveloping in a radiation bath…"
"He disabled it", Ann reported.
"What does that mean?", Roy asked.
"It means we can't track him. He's lost in time for the rest of his life".
"Doug", Jarrod interrupted, "I've collated the settings Ted used. The amount of energy he deployed couldn't've sent him back or forward by more than fifty years, probably less".
"Ann: try narrowing your search".
"A century…", Roy said.
"Less than a blink, compared to the countless billions of years".
Ted found himself in a very strange place. No gravity, no sense of motion, just blue and red sparkles flying by. How long this went on, he could not tell. Then detail began to appear. At first, he didn't know if he wasn't just imagining it. The details filled in, and he seemed to be flying toward a Medieval village, as the sparkles faded. Then he had a definite sense of falling. He landed, very ungracefully, on a street of the village.
"You all right, Mister?", a passer by asked. "Looks like you took a nasty fall".
"Damn Portkeys: I never got the hang of 'em. Nasty re-entry… Say, is that today's paper?"
Ted got up.
"You aren't from around here?", he asked as he handed over a paper called the Daily Prophet.
"No, I'm from America", he said as he scanned the masthead: June 14, 1993.
"I made it!", Ted said to himself.
"Beg pardon?"
"Nothing", he said as he handed back the newspaper, "Thanks".
Next stop, the Three Broomsticks and take the Floo to the Leaky Cauldron.
