Chapter 5
Missing in Action

Oh, it couldn't be better, Tony chortled to himself when he saw his new department rotation. He'd drawn Mission Control, with its direct access to Temporal Engineering.

It had taken a while, but he had finally come up with a plan. It wasn't much of one, but it was better than nothing, which his pride simply would not allow after he'd declared his intent in front of the other kids. He wasn't quite so cheerful when he actually reported for duty, however: The door to TE was kept locked, with a keypad mounted on the wall next to it. That door didn't even have the decency to be in the back of the room where he might be able to slip through once he had found the code, but was in front, to the right of the Omnitron. There would be no opportunity to gain access from a room that was manned day and night.

He found similar locks on every entrance to TE he could find.

Tony was no stranger to theft. He'd come from Depression-era Chicago, oldest of seven children with a widowed mother in the days before welfare and Social Security. At first he'd had a job sweeping floors and stocking shelves at a grocery store, but the place had closed, and, like everyone else, he'd been unable to find work elsewhere. With the family's meager savings rapidly running out, he'd been forced to turn to other means. He'd become fairly adept at shoplifting and had quickly learned to pick pockets as well as locks. Since he'd been brought to VHQ, he'd watched movie characters break into the electronic and magnetic locks of later years; however, while he'd learned the theory, it required equipment that was simply not available outside of TE. It was a perfect Catch-22. (Stupid movie, in his opinion, but a very useful phrase.)

It figured, he groused to himself as he pondered ways he might manage to get in despite security measures. He'd counted his embryonic fowl a little too soon; he should have known that the very heart of VHQ would be protected by something more sophisticated than a lock he could pick. He was going to need help, and he knew just where to find it.

~oOo~

"Not just no, but hell, no!" Ray blurted when Tony told him what he wanted. "You looking to get us both sent back where we came from? It's not worth it!"

"So what's it worth to you to keep the Council from finding out why Voyager Drake doesn't scan on the Locator?"

"You're blowing smoke," Ray sneered.

"No, I'm not. I saw you doing it. Remember the day I showed up with those papers for Voyager Stavrou? You didn't minimize fast enough."

Ray ran a hand over suddenly tired eyes. Drake might be gone, but what the man had made him do was still hanging over his head and would continue to do so as long as Tony had anything to say about it.

A span of seventy years might have separated their respective time zones, but it hadn't prevented them from becoming close friends during their time in Orientation. The gulf that was opening between them now, however, had little to do with the cultural gap between the 1930s and the early 2000s. It was Ray's conclusion that his former friend was a few bits short of a byte.

~oOo~

There was no shortage of activities to fill Jeffrey's days and speed the passage of time, but he and Bogg were both beginning to go stir-crazy by the time the boy was finally up to the promised tour. Though Bogg had originally planned on just him and Jeff, having a guide from Orientation could get them into places that he, alone, could not.

In Receiving, Jeffrey got to see for himself the Receiving Chambers, one of which had been Bogg's first sight upon arrival at VHQ, and he learned about the Leapgate, the transtemporal transporter that had brought him here and was also the means by which power was transmitted to the Omni. He remembered Bogg telling him that only a very small percentage of Voyagers came in that way; the vast majority were rescued from the very jaws of death by Voyagers sent after them, or were people who were insignificant to history, in which case a Voyager was sent to invite the individual to accompany him to Headquarters. In both the latter instances, they arrived in the open area in front of the monitor station in Receiving.

The technician on duty there showed him the display panel with its indicators that announced an impending arrival, as well as information about the recruit and his physical condition, so that a guide from Orientation could be called, and medical personnel if needed.

From there they went to the Mission Control Center, which was the only place other than Medical where the technology did not look like something out of HG Wells. In point of fact, it reminded Jeffrey of NASA's Mission Control, with six banks of terminals, and a large screen mounted on the front wall. That screen currently showed a bewildering array of red and green lights, each with a series of numbers.

The lead technician, a tall, lanky man with jet-black hair just beginning to go gray at the temples, and dark eyes behind thick, black-framed glasses, seemed to have no fixed station, but roamed about the room, his eyes darting from the large screen—the Omnitron—to the terminals as he passed them, to the remote Core link he carried. Alicia was moving to approach him when one of the technicians called him over; he stood looking over her shoulder for a moment, then punched a few buttons on his calculator-like handheld unit. A puzzled look crossed his face as he slapped the side of the device; it let out a squeal of protest, but apparently was no more informative, to judge from the frustrated, baleful look he gave it.

The man glanced over at the little group by the door and shook his head, at which Alicia ushered them out once more. "We'll have to come back later; they're a little busy right now," she said and led them on.

~oOo~

Will sat back from his desk, for once actually glad to have an incoming call interrupt his work. Some days it just didn't pay to get out of bed in the morning. "Control; Parker."

"Will, it's Howard. I've got something odd going on down here; can you link to terminal Mike-Charlie-fifteen?"

"Got it. What's the problem?"

"Take a look at event three-seven-Delta."

"Is there a reason there's nobody assigned to that red zone?"

"The system won't accept input, and all the Core will give me is a 'pending' signal."

Will entered a few commands on his own remote, got the same results, then tried entering his director's override code. A date and location appeared, and he spat a particularly foul oath. "Disregard it for now, Howie; the Core wants someone in particular on this one, and he's not available at the moment. I'll handle it from here; we've still got a pretty wide margin before it goes critical."

"Thanks. And one more thing: How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Howie?"

Will chuckled. "Take a chill-pill, Howie; I'll talk to you later." He broke the connection, then made a call of his own. "Ben, it's Will. We're going to have to step up the preparations a bit; the event just went red."

~oOo~

"So how come we didn't get to see the actual Leapgate?" Jeffrey wanted to know when the tour was done. The three of them were in the cafeteria eating dinner.

"Because it's part of the Core, and that's in TE," Alicia told him. "Only the people who work there are allowed in, except in peripheral areas like Receiving, Mission Control, and the reception area of the front office. You know about the Core?"

The boy nodded. "Yeah; Will told me about it. He said the Founder built it." Something else occurred to him then, and he went on, "Susan said something about the people who invented the Omni. Who were they?"

Alicia looked at Bogg. "You mean you haven't told him yet?"

Phineas shrugged. "The only time it ever came up, there wasn't time to explain it."

"When did it come up?" Jeffrey asked.

"In Persia, after the Karaunas captured us. Remember what that auctioneer said about the Omni?"

"Yeah; he said it was a talisman made by a tribe of sorcerers on some faraway island, and you said he was close."(1)

Alicia raised an eyebrow. "What time zone was that?"

"Thirteenth century," Bogg told her.

"That's actually uncannily accurate for that era." She looked back to Jeffrey. "If space is an ocean, a planet could be considered an island, couldn't it?"

"A planet?" Jeffrey repeated, then his eyes went wide. "You mean the Omni was invented by aliens?"

"Actually, we're the aliens here," Alicia told him with a grin. "VHQ is on their world."

"You mean I'm on another planet right now? Wow! …But then, how does the Founder fit into it? I thought he was from Earth."

"He was. You see, the inventors were having trouble figuring out how to power the Omni. It uses so much power, no battery will do the job—at least, not one small enough to be portable. They were trying to figure out how to transmit power across time; the Founder gave them the answer. Because it was his work that made it possible, extraterrestrials may have invented the Omni, but a Terran is the Founder. You could call it an honorary title."

"What do the ETs look like?"

"As far as I know, no one's ever met one face to face. If anybody has, they're not talking."

~oOo~

Eventually, the day finally came when Jeffrey was cleared for field duty, and a day was set for his solo mission. The day before he was to go, Carrie Franklin took him and Bogg to a room next door to Mission Control, identical to it, but much smaller. There was only a single bank of computers, and the Omnitron was a fraction of the size of the one in Mission Control. Will was standing in front of it, an Omni in one hand and his Core link in the other.

"This is the Training Control Center, where we monitor student Voyagers on their assignments," Carrie explained.

The lights on this Omnitron were all blue, and Jeffrey asked, "What're all the lights?"

Will looked up from his remote. "I thought you got the nickel tour two weeks ago."

"I did, but I didn't really get to see Mission Control; they were too busy," the boy replied.

"It was the day our pet Event went red," Franklin added, then elaborated to Jeff, "It's extremely rare that we actually know a particular event is about to diverge from its true course; this one began to diverge the day you were in MC."

Jeffrey nodded as he remembered what had happened. "So what's the Omnitron showing?"

"Omnis, what else?" Will grinned.

"Will, you are totally incorrigible," Franklin rebuked him playfully.

"Ah, Carrie, you know you love it," Will shot back. "And don't bother pulling your 'Dragon Lady' act, either; it doesn't wash anymore," he added when she tried to tweak his ear.

She shook her head. "Wisecracks notwithstanding, each light does represent an Omni; these all belong to student Voyagers. The lights are blue because they're here at Headquarters." Jeffrey looked over her shoulder as she sat at a terminal; the screen showed fifteen blue lights. "Will, can you patch me into Phineas' field group?"

He made some entries on his remote, and the blue lights were replaced by several red lights, two green ones, and a single blue one.

"That blue one's us, isn't it?" Jeffrey asked.

"Yes, it is."

"What're the numbers?"

"This one is the serial number of Phineas' Omni, and this one is his Locator file code. If I click on the serial number, it shows me what his Omni's memory unit is recording right now." She did so, and the screen showed them in the Training Control Center; Bogg's name appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. "If I do this…" She entered a command on the keyboard, and the image appeared on the Omnitron. "That's how we'll be watching you on your assignment tomorrow."

"What if you click on his Locator file code?"

"It'll tell me where he is." She did so, and the legend Voyager Headquarters appeared where the code number had been.

"When Susan came after us in Texas, she made it sound like her Omni had a Locator unit,"(2) Bogg said questioningly.

"She has a three-sixteen-fifty, doesn't she? Some of those do have one; earlier models don't. Will, you got that Omni programmed in yet?"

"Just finished; coming up on your screen now," he replied, and the display on her screen switched back to its original display. One of the lights was highlighted, indicating that it was a new addition. Its serial number, 64329, yielded the same image of them in TCC, this time with Jeffrey's name on the screen, and the Locator file code showed that he was at VHQ. "And that's all I brought you here for," she concluded, "to get your Omni programmed into the system and to make sure it was tracking properly. Everything's set; all you need to do is show up here tomorrow morning with that Guidebook I gave you. I'll actually give you the Omni then."

~oOo~

It was late, and few people were abroad. There was an outside chance that someone might catch Tony wandering where he shouldn't be, but unless that someone were an ultra-suspicious sort and made him turn out his pockets, they wouldn't know what he was carrying.

This was actually the easy part; it was the first stage of his plan that had been tricky. Armed with the necessary passcodes and the location of the Omni storage area, he'd had to break into TE, make his way unseen to that area, lift an unassigned unit, and get out again, all through a fully-manned department. Somehow, he'd managed it.

He grinned evilly to himself. They'd get a bad shock when they tried to track Jeffrey Jones Bogg tomorrow—he couldn't even think the name without a sneer. Oh, they'd find him eventually, he knew; they seemed to have a way around every glitch the time stream could throw at them. The pity of it was that the kid himself wouldn't know until he returned and was told about it.

Once Tony got into the Academy area of the vast underground complex that was VHQ, the chances of another person being there to see him at this hour fell to zero. When he found Professor Franklin's office, the skeleton key in his pocket—a leftover from his pre-recruitment time—made short work of the simple lock on the door. He found the kid's Omni on the desk in the inner office. There were definite advantages to being stuck in an embarrassingly honest society when you were anything but, he chortled to himself as he did what he had come to do. Too bad he would be in school tomorrow when the kid left; he would have loved to see the looks on everyone's faces.

~oOo~

Will and Carrie were waiting for them when they arrived the next morning; Jeffrey's mouth went dry at the sight of the Omni on the table, his very own Omni, even if it was only for the duration of this assignment.

"Nervous?" Bogg asked quietly.

"A little," Jeffrey admitted.

"So was I, my first time."

Will snorted. "Ain't that the truth! Jeff, I'll have you know he's the original Voyager Fumblethumbs; the only one in our class to drop his Omni."

"But this isn't my first time," Jeffrey protested. "I've even been alone before."

Bogg smiled at him. "So that means you have nothing to prove, right?"

Once again, he'd managed to find just the right thing to say; the boy's butterflies immediately settled down. "Yeah," he replied, his usual confidence back.

Carrie handed him the Omni and a small canvas roll. "This is a basic toolkit for Omni maintenance," she told him. "You shouldn't need it, but it's standard procedure to carry one."

He nodded, having seen the one Bogg carried.

"There's one thing different from your usual assignments," Carrie went on. "Remember to talk to us whenever you can. We won't be able to answer you, but your commentary is important for the evaluation." She smiled at him when his eyes widened just a little. "It's only a dare, Jeffrey," she reminded him. "Completely unofficial. Whatever the outcome, it will make absolutely no difference to your status. The only reason for the evaluation is so Will can determine the winner of the pool."

"You mean they're betting on me?"

"They bet on every dare," Bogg snorted.

"So how much have you got riding on this one?" Jeffrey asked knowingly.

"I'm not telling you," Bogg grinned. "Maybe...maybe when you get back, but not now."

"Oh, you'll tell me," Jeffrey grinned back as he clipped the Omni and the Guidebook to his belt.

"Any time you're ready, then," Carrie said.

Jeffrey's eyes met Bogg's for a moment, and they nodded to each other. Phineas' heart lurched as his young partner—his son—vanished from sight.

Carrie and Will waited silently for the readouts to start coming in; then, suddenly, Will's fingers were frantically stabbing buttons on his remote, and Carrie was sliding the mouse rapidly on its pad; then she went for her keyboard and started entering commands at lightning speed.

"Status?" Will said tersely.

"No Omni readout. One second it was there, and then it was gone."

"Confirm serial number six-four-three-two-niner."

"Affirmative; number confirms. Locator scan negative."

Will checked his remote again. "Frak!" he spat. "Carrie, the data file's gone!"

"What?"

"Stand by." He entered a few more commands on his remote and waited. Neither of them noticed Garth's entrance.

"I take it I missed him?" he murmured as he took a seat next to Bogg.

"He just left," came the reply.

Will turned to Carrie, his face pale. "Database Maintenance confirms file deletion," he said.

"Ohmigod," Franklin breathed, then they sprang into action once more.

"What's happening?" Bogg demanded, his eyes darting from the still-blank Omnitron to the frenetic activity of the two technicians.

Carrie turned stricken eyes to him. "We…we've lost him."

1 Voyagers!: "The Travels of Marco…And Friends"

2 Voyagers!: "The Trial of Phineas Bogg"