Sunday

July 7th, 2148

Resistance Hospital

Jennifer continued to peruse the data Scout had gathered, noting the dates of each file, still marveling at the fact months had passed that she had not been there to experience. It just didn't feel like time had passed to her! It was frustrating to such a degree that she had to keep reminding herself that it was July. July 2148. July 7th, 2148, to be exact.

What's more, she had missed the Fourth that year. That meant she didn't get to hear the stories of previous Fourth of Julys that the team would tell so they could play a game of 'holiday one-upsmanship' with each other. Sometimes, they would talk about things she had no understanding of or reference for, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable. Her boys would get this happy look on their faces when they reminisced about the past, and those happy looks were few and far between. Maybe she could get them to tell her the stories even though the Fourth was over with?

She shook her head and refocused on the reader. Fourth of July stories could wait until later. "Okay... let's see... storms coming on a schedule... tachyons only in the storm when all the little storms joined together... storm strength increasing over the week..."

Lots of information, nothing much more than what Scout had detailed for her - wait, something strange...

She punched a few buttons on the reader and scanned certain information picked up by the ship's sensors. Molecules in the storm were traveling in the same direction... in the same direction as the tachyon particles presumably. Molecules moving in the same direction... Jennifer envisioned a magnet. There was a north end and a south end to a bar magnet, the molecules moved from north to south which magnetized the metal. Opposite ends attracted, same ends repelled. Could moving something through time require a 'north' end and a 'south' end for the object to travel across? It would mean a beginning and ending destination, and maybe the tachyon particles moved along that distance? Was that possible? She had no idea. She was guessing, and she knew it. Scout was undoubtedly doing the same thing.

Then there were the storms occurring at regular intervals. She had no guess. It wasn't just 'how' it was happening; it was 'why' it was happening and who could be behind it all. If the tachyons were proof of time travel, then could the storms also be connected to time travel somehow? It stormed for an hour, then stopped for an hour, almost down to the minute. What else was there that had that steady of a tempo that she could use for comparison? Heartbeats were steady. Pulses were steady. Metronomes... she pushed that idea aside. This was something natural, not mechanical, right?

There was a knock on the door. "Come in," Jennifer called out.

Doctor Kirkland walked in, a smile on her face. "Looks like I came at a good time. Everyone else has cleared out. How do you feel?" she asked Jennifer.

Jennifer looked at her, her eyes indicating her annoyance. "Do you have any idea how many people have asked me that question in the last few hours?"

Kirkland started counting on her fingers. "Three, four five... my guess?"

"Everybody who's walked in that door," Jennifer said jokingly. "Every single one of your medics that have come in here to run tests on me asks me the same thing."

Kirkland smiled. "I'm sorry, but the fact you're alive and well and here is a bit of a surprise."

"Right," Jennifer moved slightly to find a more comfortable position and she put down the reader. "I guess I'm still a bit of a novelty."

"A novelty as far as the fact you're here? Yes, but not to me or your team or a few select others working on this ward. No one outside this hospital knows exactly where you are, but news of your being alive is everywhere. I think all the Resistance personnel that's been coming through here is taking the story out with them. Cypher, Elzer Pulaski and Dennis T were here when your ship landed. I have no doubt they're already telling anyone in earshot that you're alive. The story that's been circulating is that you were captured and your team finally rescued you. That seems to be satisfying most everyone's curiosity. But you know how stories and rumors start. They're making up their own versions of how it happened."

Jennifer hadn't considered rumors. Months had passed, but to her, it had only been a day or two. How was she supposed to react to all that? How was she supposed to react to any of it? And Elzer Pulaski? Cypher? Dennis T? She'd never even met Dennis T. They were curious too? One part of her kept wondering why anyone would wonder about her since it'd only been a few days since she battled Blastarr, but then she reminded herself that it was months earlier and everyone thought she was dead. "That's the most popular rumor?" she asked.

"It was this morning. This evening? Who knows?"

"A good cover story," Jennifer admitted.

Kirkland sat down and looked at her patient. "Good enough for now. But what about my question? How do you feel?"

Jennifer frowned. "I keep taking short naps because I'm tired and everything hurts."

"I had to do some major surgery on you. The regenerator helped a lot, but you've got a lot of healing still to do. Don't worry, you can get up and walk around as soon as you want, but a few more days in the regenerator should fix you up pretty well. You don't have to lie here in pain. I can get you -"

"No," Jennifer shook her head. "Those drugs make me feel like I'm moving through quicksand, and I've got some research to do."

No doctor could argue with that. Too many of their drugs lacked finesse. Many were crude, but it was all they had. And since Jennifer was a very stubborn soldier, she'd say to keep the drugs for someone who really needs them. She could handle the pain. "I may have some aspirin in a first aid kit."

Jennifer smiled at her. "I'll remember that if I need it."

"Well, I've got some good news. The jumpship is on its way back. Should be here in a couple of hours. Hawk said he had a surprise for you."

Jennifer smiled at that thought. As happy as she was that the team was heading back, once again she had to remember that it had been months for them since they were separated. The four of them had been operating on their own without her. Was she going to be a fifth wheel? That was a thought she didn't want to entertain. What if they weren't what she remembered the team being? One thing about the Power Team, they were always stronger together, but more than that, they were five friends who actually enjoyed each other's company. Five parts of a whole that added up to more than the sum of its parts. What if all that was different? What if they were now four parts to the whole and not five? Her smile faltered.

"Everything's going to be okay," Kirkland told her. "I know you have to feel like you've fallen through the rabbit hole, but the way those guys worried about you... I know everything's going to be fine."

Jennifer hoped she was right. Then she wondered what Kirkland meant when she said the 'rabbit hole.'

~o~ This Domino Won't Fall ~o~

Saturday

March 23rd, 2357

Jet Propulsion Laboratories

In the privacy of his office, Elias Pitcairn was about to do something that could cost him his job if he was discovered. Not like anything like that ever scared him. What fun was life if no one ever took a risk?

He first opened up the personnel files and broke through the security on the confidential comments written in the files by superiors. Maybe that was one way to figure out more about William Custer.

"Okay, William Custer, let's see what others think of you..." Elias re-read his personnel file, found a somewhat innocuous, steadily promoted scientist. Nothing really big stood out other than the fact the guy loved paperwork.

Nothing really big...

That got Elias' attention. How many people in any work setting didn't have some kind of write-up somewhere? How scited up was that? Okay, so not everyone was as prone to harmless disruptions as he was or were as independently thinking as he was, but at some point, wouldn't someone make some boss angry?

Custer's file was spotless.

That meant one thing to Elias - it was a fake. Either it was faked or someone had hacked into the personnel database and cleaned it up or removed any negative comments. Either way, it wasn't the truth.

So where else was information about Custer? And if his personnel file was incorrect in any way, could he not be Custer?

Quickly and without the slightest hesitation, Elias brought up the medical files. He easily bypassed the security systems with a 'borrowed' ident and password. "Child's play," he muttered to himself. He brought up William Custer's file... again, it was too clean. It was as if someone had written it up with all the 'right' answers.

There was nothing conspicuous about it.

"All right... let's look a little deeper."

He looked at the DNA records. "DNA doesn't lie or so the old saying goes," he muttered to himself. The DNA database was the most private and guarded database in existence. Everything from illegal cloning to identity theft had once ran rampant when DNA was the personal identification for people. Oddly enough, it was certain bits of technology the Power Team developed that used DNA coded security that inspired a worldwide use of the system. Sure, it worked in some ways, was a nightmare in others, but it was the way of the world at the moment. That meant it was zealously guarded by the security systems to keep people from doing what Elias was doing at that moment.

He found William Custer's DNA in the medical files and ran it through the actual DNA database so 'carefully' guarded by the government. Elias almost laughed at the ease with which he traipsed right into the government's database. More child's play for a gifted scientist like himself...

According to the personnel files, Custer claimed a possible relationship to a General George Armstrong Custer and Libby Custer. George Armstrong Custer... that name sounded familiar. Something was nudging his memory from his history class... he took a moment to look up the name and only had to read the first few lines of text to jog his memory. Right. Custer was a West Point graduate, fought for the Union during the Civil War in America, was at the Battle of Gettysburg, was at Appomattox when General Lee surrendered and was killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn. It seemed he was best known for leading the 7th Cavalry into Little Big Horn. In fact, there was a rather odd comment that many people were only aware of his involvement at Little Big Horn and nothing else. Odd. That was a type of historical obscurity, only being known for one thing when the person did many things. Then Elias saw the phrase that he did remember from his history classes - Custer's Last Stand. All right... memory jogged... he remembered who General Custer was. Next, he looked up the Custer family DNA histories for comparison.

Surprise, surprise, the DNA didn't match the general's or his wife's?

He quickly researched the various Custer family bloodlines. Custer and his wife didn't have any children? Okay, what about a Custer relative? Elias pulled up any and all information on the general's relatives. William Custer's DNA didn't match any of it.

He wasn't really a Custer or at least not someone physically descended from George Armstrong Custer.

Now Elias was getting somewhere!

Okay, so it didn't mean much. One of his forebearers could have been adopted. That would have explained the lack of matching DNA. Family stories sometimes lost a lot of details generation to generation. But this bit of information gave Elias another avenue to start looking in.

He brought up William Custer's DNA strand again and began to run computer analyses with other records for similar family groupings along with the mitochondrial DNA code present in the strands until he located the particular grouping that matched the lab's file for William Custer, only the name William Custer wasn't listed within that particular DNA grouping. There were a lot of other names listed however. Elias went through each one, verifying employment, location, general description until he came to one that wasn't anywhere to be found on any search.

Elias mumbled to himself, "Byron Micklon? Let's run with that. Okay, if that's his real name, then who is he?"

He began to run background and criminal checks on the name Byron Micklon. Nothing came up. There were no school records, birth records, domicile location records...

That didn't make any sense. How was the name even in the system if there were no other records...

The buffer? That was how they found his search for the date of June 14th, 2132. He double-checked the name Byron Micklon... yep, the name and histories were in the buffer and hadn't ever been permanently erased from the government files. Someone had removed him from any and all records except they couldn't delete all the information in the buffer. Then again, the government never did run deletions on the buffer. It was too easy to lose good information and need to dredge it up from the buffer.

So if this Micklon wasn't a criminal, then why was he hiding his identity if that's what he was really doing?

"Think, Elias, think," he muttered to himself. "Why hide who you are?" He considered the question, and one answer bubbled to the top of his thoughts. "Maybe he's hiding where he came from, not exactly who he is."

He began to trace the DNA strand again until he found the particular descendency to track back through on both the father and mother's side. It was boring, painstaking work, but Elias kept looking, back through the forebearers, going back ten generations.

It was when he found the tenth generation that he stopped.

Elias stared at the computer screen, not believing what he was seeing. He reran the DNA; he rechecked the names list. This couldn't be right.

He reran the mitochondrial DNA again, tracing it through the ten generations...

It was true. DNA didn't lie.

"Oh, Delphi and Jillian are not going to like this," he said. "But that explains a lot."

~0~0~0~0~

Temporal Administrative Council

The Temporal Administrative Council sat in their usual positions as they debated the information before them. It was getting louder and louder in that room. AdministratorEileen Collier glanced around the room. Everyone was definitely and loudly present. Professor Edward Reichardt, Doctor Diane Stabler, Councilor Arthur Reutiman, Councilor Ernest Bryan, Professor Sonja Edgars and Councilor Arthur Fowler each tried to out-shout the others until Collier called everyone to order. "Now, has everyone read all the reports forwarded from Doctor Aderholdt and Doctor Barrett over the last few hours?"

She was greeted with nodding heads and comments of affirmation.

"How could this get so scited up?" Reichardt asked. "The job was to salvage only Stuart Power."

Stabler pushed a pile of papers toward Reichardt. "Early reports said that the Brophy Theorem happened. Only I guess we can call it Brophy's Law since it's been proven. But it doesn't matter. It's happened, and we've got to decide what to do about it. Do we try to alter the situation or let it continue on as is? Do we run the chance of making it worse if we interfere?"

"I see no reason for debate," Reutiman added. "Stuart Power is alive and in 2148. Searches are showing that the timeline will mirror the original and our civilization would be saved. However, there's the problem with Jennifer Chase. Captain Jonathan Power has to destroy everything that once belonged to Dread and Overmind in order for civilization to rebuild itself without the threat of those loyal to Dread attempting another takeover. We can make certain that the outcome of the original timeline still takes place. Captain Power must lead the Resistance teams on an all-out assault on Dread's forces. Every computer system on the planet has to be destroyed because Overmind hid parts of his programs in every server and backup drive. He could take over at any time if the world is not completely decomputerized before society rebuilds them. The only way our research shows us that can happen is if Chase is dead and Jonathan Power becomes a killer due to the anger over her death. They have her back, then she must die and it has to look like it was Dread's doing to create a need for vengeance in Power."

Edgars argued his point. "I disagree. There's no guarantee that removing Jennifer Chase at that point would create the Jonathan Power we know from history. More research needs to be done on the succeeding timeline. It could be that -"

"No, there's no guarantee but research has been done," Fowler argued. "Power doesn't annihilate Dread in the new timeline. He does stop him, he does dismantle his Empire but he doesn't utterly wipe it off the face of the planet."

"And that means our world has changed. Too much won't exist if the timeline cements itself as the newly established timeline," Reutiman continued.

"But time's fluid," Bryan interrupted. "We can change a timeline even if it has been cemented as the new timeline. It's possible we could stop the time fractal from reaching Chase at the Power Base at the time of its destruction."

Stabler disagreed. "That would make it worse. It'd be like churning up water in already churned up water. The ripples in the time wave haven't solidified yet, and anything we do at this point could have a negative effect. Trying to remove her at a later date, that's doable but only slightly less dangerous."

Collier called for attention. "All right, we've all read the reports; we know what's at stake. The question is what to do about it. I think we're all agreed that keeping Stuart Power in 2148 is the least risky decision, but do we remove Chase and have it blamed on Dread or do we let well enough alone and deal with the new reality?"

Reichardt stood up. "Stuart Power has been salvaged. That was mandatory. Chase's return is detrimental to the timeline. She must be removed." Then he sat down.

Stabler stood as soon as Reichardt sat. "We've interfered in history too much as it is. We risk too much if we try to alter it any more. I say we do nothing."

Reutiman took his turn to speak. "Chase has to be removed."

Edgars stood, almost daring Reutiman to interrupt him. "We don't know enough of the changes. If we do something that turns out to be irrevocable, we'll make things worse. More study needs to be done."

Fowler waited a moment, choosing his words carefully before speaking. "As much as I hate to vote this way, we must have Dread destroyed utterly and Overmind completely wiped out. Too much of the future depends on that one fact. Whatever is necessary to see that happen must be undertaken."

Bryan, the calm thinker of the group, suggested, "I see no reason for Chase to die. Regardless of our position as the caretakers of history, if we go back with the purpose of killing her, then we are murderers. Worse than Dread himself. I will have no part of that. If this Council decides that she must be removed, then I suggest we move her to a new time in the future, beyond the life span of the Power Team. We can research the most likely temporal area that her presence would have very little impact on, where she can live out her life in relative obscurity but in safety. All we have to do is make it look like Dread killed her, but we don't have to pull the trigger."

Collier's eyebrows raised at the suggestion. Instead of killing Chase, they could order her removal by sending her to another time? That could be a viable option.

"It stands at three to three: three to kill her, two to wait and one to remove her to another time. It looks like I'm the swing vote." Collier thought through the massive amount of information they had. "We see history with the convenience of hindsight, but we look at it with modern eyes," she muttered as she considered her options. "We must err on the side of caution, but I see no reason to become killers. I like the idea of making them think that one of Dread's soldiers killed Chase when, in actuality, we move her to a future time to be determined by the scientists at JPL and Los Alamos."

"How will we do that exactly?" Reichardt asked her. "History tells us that Dread soldiers had a certain look but what that look is, we don't know. We can't send someone back in time, do the job and then bring them back in an efficient amount of time without risk of being discovered. Besides, time traveling one of our people is just risky enough for us to not try that on such a serious moment. We don't have enough experience, and we have to get this right on the first try."

Collier shook her head. "No, we can't, but we do have the technology to send an intelligent short-term corporeal hologram back. Ironically enough, this technology came from Stuart Power's research on Mentor."

"A corporeal hologram?" Stabler asked. "I'm not read in on that technology."

Collier nodded her head in understanding. "I'm not surprised. It was a somewhat classified short-lived undertaking that proved to be inefficient with our current equipment. The holographic programs conflicted with the Cyclotron and the holograms were unstable, so the research was abandoned. Very few even know about it."

"What was the problem?" Reichardt wanted to know.

"My guess? Those holograms were meant to last hours. That meant a continual opening in the time corridor that had to be maintained for the length of the hologram's mission. Keeping the time corridor open is too dangerous to the continuum. That's why that research was abandoned and we use time waves to go to a specific point in time. It makes less interference. Now, in theory, we should be able to send back a solid preprogrammed hologram, literally a hologram with a physical presence and a single-purpose program. It should be simple enough for our scientists to program the hologram to immediately scan recordings and frequencies to learn what the Dread Youth looked like and adopt their physical appearance. As soon as the hologram is in proximity to the target, it could utilize a preprogrammed holographic projection to make everyone think he's killed Chase and destroyed the body, only we temporally move her at that exact moment. It should be easy enough because, theoretically, power from the Cyclotron can be cycled through the hologram. Witnesses observing the event will think that one of Dread's soldiers is guilty of a murder. We may even have to make the hologram appear to be killed if people there decide to get revenge. However, that should suffice in angering Captain Power. The connection between our time and 2148 would only be a matter of minutes, and the risk of temporal interference from an open time corridor should be minimized. Is that acceptable to everyone?"

Moving was preferable to killing. None of the members of the administration were evil, but they were practical, powerful and selfish. They didn't want to have their world destroyed. Besides, Chase was supposed to have died in the explosion. They would just be putting history to right.

"If it fails?" Reichardt asked. "We've had limited success moving an object temporally. There's still research being done on the method."

Collier looked at her colleague. "If we cannot do this, if we have no chance of success with this plan, we will have to kill Chase. We will agree that that option is the last option, to be used only as a last resort. Agreed?"

Not a perfect solution, but a solution nonetheless. One that did not make them worse than Dread but would assure their world would survive.

"Then we shall send our recommendations to both Aderholdt and Barrett and let them start working up the numbers. We'll have them report to us tomorrow with the results."

Sometimes, being a temporal administrator meant making the hard choices that kept them up at nights.