The Final Countdown
Chapter 2.
Dr. O'Shay looked up from his desk as Yuko entered. "You have a visitor from America waiting downstairs in the lobby, Hakase"
"Thank you Yuko," Dr. O'Shay replied looking at his watch. "Right on time. Would you mind accompanying me downstairs?"
"Sure, O'Shay Hakase. Who is our guest?" Yuko asked.
"An Admiral Yelland from the U.S. Navy." Dr. O'Shay explained. "Yelland is now retired, he served as Captain on the USS Nimitz back in the early 1980's. He must be pushing 90 by now. He called me a week ago to let me know that he wanted to visit us. He said he has something that belongs to me."
The Doctor and his assistant took the elevator down to the main lobby of the Ministry's main building. Their guest was seated in a wheelchair in the reception area. The retired American Admiral was dressed in a business casual suit, but wore a decades old naval cap with the CVN-68 insignia of his first command, the USS Nimitz. He had a large cardboard box sitting in his lap.
"Admiral Yelland, I presume?" O'Shay asked.
"Correct." Yelland replied, "and you would be Dr. O'Shay, head of the Ministry of Science?"
"Yes," O'Shay replied, extending his hand in greeting.
The two men shook hands. "Would you allow me to wheel you upstairs Admiral?"
"Go right ahead." Yelland replied.
O'Shay got behind the Admiral and grabbed hold of the chair's handles. The three of them entered the elevator and soon found themselves in the doctor's office.
"Now then what was so urgent that you had to catch the next flight to Japan to see me?" Dr. O'Shay asked as he sat down behind his desk. "And what is it that I've lost which you wanted to return?"
"That is a very long story, Hakase." Yelland said. "And what's in this box may very well not make any sense to you. I've had this object since 1980 when it was left behind on my ship. It's been in storage in a top secret warehouse in the American southwest desert since then. I only recently realized where that object came from, and who it belonged to."
The Admiral held the box up, and gave it to the doctor. Yuko handed the doctor a swiss army knife she kept in her purse and the doctor slowly cut through the cords and sealing tape holding the box closed. He then lifted the lid and looked inside. "What the hell?" he muttered. "How can this be in here!"
"What is it doctor?" Yuko asked.
O'Shay reached into the box and pulled out a robot's head.
"That's Astro's head!" Yuko stammered.
"So this did belong to you" Yelland replied. "Exactly what is Astro?"
"He is an advanced robot made in the form of a nine year old boy." Dr. O'Shay replied. "Astro was built in the first years of the 21st century by the former head of the Science Ministry. Dr. Tenma created Astro as a replacement for his own son. After Tenma suffered a mental breakdown, Astro had been in storage for many years before I revived him. What I don't understand is how you could have had his head in your possession for nearly 35 years. Besides, his head was securely attached to his body this morning when he left for school."
"I know you are going to find my story unbelievable Dr. O'Shay, but I first met Astro in 1980, or rather 1941 depending on how you look at it." The retired Admiral said.
"You time traveled?" The doctor asked.
"Yes, and apparently so did Astro." Yelland replied.
"Astro never mentioned that to me, and I don't ever recall him loosing his head and requiring a replacement." The doctor said scratching his chin.
"Perhaps it hasn't happened yet." Yelland suggested. "He never did tell me what year he came from."
"How did you travel backwards in time?" Dr. O'Shay asked. "And how did you meet up with Astro?"
"Ah, that is a story." Yelland said. "The Nimitz was on a routine training mission just to the west of Pearl Harbor. We turned into the wind to launch our fighters when a strange cloud formation appeared on our radar. I ordered the ship turned away from the path of the storm, but no matter how we tried to out run it, the weather closed in on us. We had no choice but to recall the planes, they started landing just as the storm hit us. It was like a horizontal tornado, a strange funnel that sucked us into it. The sky turned a sickening green color and lightning flashed all around us. Electrical discharges danced about on the electronics in the bridge. Then a loud earsplitting squeal deafened us. When it was all over, we had lost contract with Pearl harbor, and the only radio transmissions we could pick up were old radio programs on the AM broadcast band."
"The storm carried you backwards in time?" The doctor asked.
"Yes, to December 6, 1941." Yelland replied. "We were back in 1941 for over 24 hours."
"What happened?"
"We sent our AWACKS and several patrol aircraft aloft to get a better picture of what we were facing." Yelland explained. "We discovered the Japanese naval task force a few hundred miles to the west of Pearl. One of our fighter patrols ran into a bunch of Zeros, and were engaged with them in a dog fight. Needless to say the Zeros were very much outmatched! Astro must have followed one of our fighters back to the Nimitz, he landed next to the bridge tower, that's when I first met him."
"My God!" O'Shay gasped. "You found yourself on a modern warship in the middle of the attack against Pearl Harbor! What were you thinking?"
"We had this crazy idea that we could change history, to prevent the attack by driving the Japanese off. Imagine what would happen if on that day the task force encountered the kind of resistance that an aircraft carrier full of F14 jet fighters could put up? They'd had been scared shitless and wouldn't have dared to attack the US. The second world war in the pacific might never have happened! Astro had the same idea. He had tried to stop the attack from Japan, and having failed that ended up on the Nimitz."
"But you didn't change history." O'Shay said.
"Because it probably isn't possible." Yelland replied. "Shortly after we launched our fighters to go up against the Japanese the storm returned. One group of fighters did briefly tangle with an advanced scout from a Japanese flight group. It appears that Astro came to the rescue of one of our planes, and somehow his head ended up in the wheel well of the aircraft. The storm sucked us back to 1980 where we came from, but Astro wasn't with us. I had hoped that he made it back home alive. Since for Astro this apparently hasn't happened yet, maybe you'd better warn him."
Yuko entered the office with a serious look on her face. "Sorry to interrupt you Doctor, but you have an urgent video call on your computer."
"Thank you Yuko," O'Shay replied as he opened the video contact on the desktop computer. "Please excuse me for a moment would you, Admiral?"
"Certainly, take your time." Yelland replied, as he wheeled his chair around to the side of the desk to get a glimpse of the monitor screen.
The image of Dr. Cirrus of the Metro City weather bureau appeared on the video conference screen. He had a worried look on his face.
"Good afternoon, Dr. O'Shay," Cirrus began. "I'm calling you because it looks like the weather bureau may need the ministries help. It appears that we have a very violent weather pattern moving into our area. Lot's of lightning and threat of tornadoes. I've never seen anything like this in quite a few years, if ever. It may generate an EMP event that could cause havoc with the cities robots. Let me share my computer screen with you and let you see what the radar and satellites are showing."
Dr. Cirrus's face disappeared from the monitor and was replaced by an image from the weather bureau's computer system. Two separate windows showed color enhanced images of a storm that was rapidly approaching from the north.
"Can you zoom in with a street map overlay in the northern quadrant of the city?" Dr. O'Shay asked.
"Sure, give me a second." Cirrus replied.
The radar image enlarged and was displayed over a map of the city. Yuko took that moment to walk in and observe the computer monitor screen.
"Dr., it looks like the storm is rapidly approaching the district where the Metro City Middle school is located." She said.
"Yes, that's Astro's school, and they should be letting out classes for the day any minute now." O'Shay realized.
"Let me see if I can bring up a ground view from any web-cams in the area." Cirrus said.
The radar map disappeared from the screen and was replaced by a web-cam view near the Metro City Middle school. The sky was a deep green in color, with lightning flashing periodically. In the distance toward the horizon a horizontal funnel cloud could be seen slowly rotating, it's mouth full of lightning flashes.
Admiral Yelland stared at the computer screen. "My God!" he exclaimed. "That's the same kind of storm that got us 35 years ago!"