Chapter 8

Consequences

Garth gazed incredulously at the fourteen-year-old and the Aide who had brought him in. He'd called the Aides on his way back to his office, with instructions that he wanted to interview personally anyone who knew anything about the Omni-swap, but he certainly hadn't expected results this soon.

It was an incredible story the boy told, how Drake had conscripted his skills to delete his Locator file and Omni serial number, and, more recently, how Tony Ingram had used his own knowledge of that deed to blackmail him into finding and providing the passcode that would get him into TE, and then deleting Jeffrey's data. "Have those pictures been found yet?" he finally asked the Aide, referring to the ones Drake had used against the hapless Ray.

Adrian Vickers shook her head. "No, but Drake's diary confirms they exist, as well as the fact that he had them doctored."

"Did he say who did the work?"

"After a fashion. While he may have been pretty sure no one would find that diary, he wasn't taking any chances. People who helped him, either willingly or otherwise, are identified only by initials, and it's got to be some kind of code, because he identifies Mr. Swirski here as 'BT Two.'"

"That might stand for 'Black Tuesday'—the second one, not the one at the beginning of the Great Depression," Ray blurted without thinking, then muttered an apology for interrupting.

"No; go on," Garth encouraged. "You may be onto something."

"His code may have something to do with the situations some Voyagers get recruited from. I was taken on the second Black Tuesday in America's history."

Both adults' eyebrows shot up at that. "Definitely onto something there, sir," Vickers nodded. "He identified someone else as BDM; given that possibility, he could have been referring to Carl Murphy, who was snatched out of the Bataan Death March. We'll definitely be following up on that."

"Good," Garth nodded, glancing at the clock on the wall. "In the meantime, go and take Mr. Ingram into custody; he should still be at his duty station. Let me know when he's been secured; I'll keep Mr. Swirski here in case he manages to escape."

That drew a slightly sour grin from Vickers. Far from taking that as an insult to her abilities, she was all too aware of how slippery a kid that age could be.

When she had left, Garth turned his full attention to Ray. "I know your primary concern right now is what's going to happen to you. The answer to that is far from simple. What you did for Voyager Drake is actually very minor; if that were the only thing at issue, I could handle the entire matter myself, and you would face nothing more than the figurative slap on the wrist the incident's presence in your record would represent. However, your involvement in a security breach is a much more serious affair, which I am obliged to bring before the Council.

"Now I'm not talking about a trial. The fact that you acted against your will is a mitigating factor, and turning yourself in weighs heavily in your favor, as does your record to this point. The Council will most likely do nothing more than determine how I should handle the matter. I expect they'll leave it to my discretion; probably the worst they'll do is make recommendations—and, as Chief Elder, I have the authority to reject them if I think they're excessive, so you needn't worry about any of the overbearing popinjays." He made the term sound like the foulest of epithets, knowing that Ray was one of the few youngsters from the early twenty-first century who even knew what it meant. The boy proved him right when a snort of amusement escaped him before he sobered again.

"Professor, what's going to happen to Tony?" Ray asked.

His features darkening, the Chief Elder let out a long sigh. "I'm afraid your friend is in serious trouble. He's committed two very grave offenses, either one of which is enough to warrant trial before the full Council. And I'm afraid I can't even begin to speculate what his sentence might be; since he's too young for the usual banishment, if sentencing is needed, a great deal of research and debate will be required before a suitable punishment can be decided upon. In the meantime, there's something you need to do tomorrow morning, and if the Council passes your case back to me, we'll consider the matter closed."

~oOo~

Laughter drifted faintly through the door as Garth knocked; when Bogg opened it, the odors that teased his and Ray's noses were enough to make their mouths water, though both had just eaten breakfast.

"Good morning, Professor, Ray," the former pirate grinned as he swung the door wide. "Will, I hope you made enough for a small army; we have company, and at least one of them is a walking appetite," he called over his shoulder, with a sideways glance at Ray that made the youth nod heartily, having reached that stage in his growth where he seriously contemplated taking up residence in the kitchen.

Garth, chuckling at the boy's reaction, noted two small boxes in the living room, the kind Billeting used to store personal belongings for field workers. "Getting ready to leave, I see," he remarked.

"Yeah; we were planning to go after we finished the send-off breakfast Will insisted on cooking for us," Bogg replied as he led the way to the kitchen. "Ray, don't you have school today?"

"I…uh, I'm supposed to talk to you guys first."

Seeing the boy's discomfort, Will set his utensils down. "I'm gonna make myself scarce for a bit," he said.

"You don't have to," Ray told him. "You're gonna find out anyway; I guess it's better this way." He swallowed hard and turned toward Jeffrey. "It was my roommate that swapped out your Omni. He needed the passcode to get into TE so he could swipe one to replace it with." He licked his lips nervously. "I…I had to get it for him. I didn't want to," he added in a rush. "He was gonna get me in trouble if I didn't. But after I met you last night, I couldn't keep quiet anymore. Tony, my roommate…he's like a few cards short of a deck, y'know? He blindsided me; I never saw it comin'. I just…didn't know what to do." His voice cracked, and he started trembling. He'd held it together last night, but now, having to face them, the full enormity of it all hit him.

Bogg reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. "Easy, kid," he soothed. "We don't bite. Honest." He put on such an exaggeratedly earnest expression, Ray couldn't help laughing. "That's better," Bogg grinned, then said, "You were blackmailed, right? Well, we know what that's like."

"It's worse than that, Bogg," Jeffrey cut in. "His best friend betrayed him."

"I know," Bogg nodded. "It'd be like Will suddenly turning around and telling Drake how scared I was my first weeks here."

That individual turned beet-red from the effort not to laugh as he thought of one particularly humorous incident that really wasn't suitable mealtime conversation.

Bogg went on, pretending not to notice his friend's amusement. "Now, if you and Professor Garth have time, why don't the two of you join us for breakfast, and you can tell us the whole story."

~o~

"Drake again; that figures," Jeffrey said when Ray had finished his tale. "Sounds like he knew exactly what he was getting into when he decided to take you on, Bogg."

"I knew about his diary; he had to have a contingency plan in case I brought it up at the trial." He went thoughtful for a long moment. "If I remember, a security violation has to be tried by the full Council, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does," Garth confirmed. "And that's why you can't leave yet. One or both of you may be needed to testify."

"About what?" Bogg wanted to know. "We don't know anything you don't; in fact, you probably know more about it now than we do."

"Procedures, Phineas. The 'rigid adherence' people still hold most of the seats on the Council; if we want justice done, we have to do this precisely by the book."

"Maybe you should give Tony what he wants, but send him to a green zone where something awful happens," Jeffrey suggested. "Let him see how hard it can really be. Maybe something like the San Francisco Earthquake, or that big hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900."

"Or even when I was recruited," Ray put in. "If he's really my friend, seeing what I went through that day will really hit him where he lives."

"When were you recruited?" Bogg asked.

Ray told him, and he stared at the boy, horrified. The date was meaningless to Jeffrey; it was many years beyond his own time, and his history lessons with Alicia had not reached that point. His stomach sank at Bogg's reaction: If the older Voyager could identify a date correctly, then the event had to be something truly earth-shattering.

~oOo~

Around a long table at the front of the room, the twenty-four members of the Council had their gazes turned toward the foot of that table, where the prosecution and the defense were situated. The new prosecutor, so recently installed that she hadn't even fully moved into her office yet, was on her feet, reading the charges. Tony sat, uncharacteristically subdued, between his defense counsel and the Dean of Pages, his ex officio guardian. By the way he grew progressively paler as each charge was read, it was clear, to Garth at least, that the boy hadn't previously realized the gravity of his offenses.

The old professor removed his pince-nez and covered his eyes at a wave of dizziness; when he opened them once more, he was in a blue room a little larger than a Receiving Chamber, furnished with a single bed, a small table, and two chairs. Behind one of the two doors was a small bathroom, curiously missing a mirror over the sink. His suspicions aroused, he raised the spectacles still in his hand and tilted them until he could see his reflection. The Founder's face stared back at him from the lenses.

Outside the courtroom, several potential witnesses waited to be called to testify. Their soft conversations came to a sudden halt as the lights flickered.

Will reached for his phone, but before he could even get it out of his pocket, cries of consternation drifted through the courtroom door. Leaping to his feet, he darted toward it and burst in, to see everyone out of their seats—a few of the chairs had been knocked over backwards, bearing mute testimony to the haste with which they had been vacated. All eyes were riveted on the stranger seated at the head of the table, where Garth should have been. At least the man was a stranger to everyone else present; Will recognized him at once and immediately went into command mode. "Bailiff, guards, clear the court!" he barked in his best parade-ground voice. It was a tone that even the most pompous Councilors wouldn't dream of arguing with, and the room was rapidly emptied.

Sam Beckett stared at the tall man in a military uniform sans insignia, until a symbol on the wall beyond caught his eyes. He'd seen it before, a peculiar glyph whose meaning was unknown to him. Then it suddenly seemed to take on a life of its own, twisting and writhing until it took on the shape of a stylized letter "V." "What the hell?!" he blurted.

Will followed his gaze and nodded. "It's okay, Dr. Beckett. You've—"

"You know who I am?"

"Hold on a minute." Going to the door, he motioned to Jeffrey, who came into the room and then stopped dead in his tracks.

Sam's gaze darted back and forth between the two, until his eyes settled on what looked like an oversized pocket watch on the man's belt, its lid adorned with the same letter that was on the wall.

An image flashed before his mind's eye, drawing his attention to the boy. He seemed to remember seeing him with the same watch-like device on his own belt, though it was absent now. Swiss cheese for brains, he thought sourly.

A name. Jeffrey…Jeffrey Bogg? Or was it Jones? An impossible birth date—

Then something clicked, and memory returned in a rush, five years' worth in a whirling kaleidoscope of images that made him momentarily dizzy. Hands gripped his shoulders, and the man's voice cut through the sickening vertigo. "Easy there, sir; it'll pass in a minute."

"Where am I?"

"You're at Voyager Headquarters, and it's going to take a while before Al can find you."

Accepting for the moment that somehow this man knew everything about him and his project, he turned his gaze back to Jeffrey. "So it's a whole organization of time travelers," he said, nodding. "Is this the far future of my project?"

"More of a parallel development that borrowed a little from yours," Will told him. "Jeff, you've got enough background to give him the Cliff's Notes version, at least. If you need help explaining things, call Ben in. I have to go smooth some ruffled feathers. I had to take control of the situation, and the Council's got to be more than a little ticked off about it." With that, he exited the courtroom, leaving Sam alone with Jeffrey. With his equilibrium stabilized once more, he regarded the boy closely, startled to note that, although it had been five years since he had seen him, he was still only twelve. Did travelling through time as these Voyagers did somehow stop the aging process?

No, that wasn't it, he told himself. The third time he'd Leaped, for him it had been instantaneous: One moment he'd been a baseball player; the next, a lush of a literature professor having an affair with one of his students. Al, however, had told him that, in actuality, six weeks had elapsed between the two. Was the reverse also true? For him, five years had passed, but perhaps for Jeffrey it had only been a matter of days or weeks. "How long has it been since you last saw me?" he asked at last.

~o~

"It was the darnedest thing," one of the Aides who had come out of the courtroom was saying. "The lights went out for less than a second, and when they came back on, professor Garth was gone, and somebody I've never seen before was in his place."

Ben Alvarez was nodding as if this was not an unexpected occurrence. As he remembered the explanations that had followed Jeffrey's assignment, any misgivings Bogg had about the boy's summons into a courtroom that had just been evacuated, vanished, and he relaxed.

The Aide noticed. "You two know what happened, don't you?"

"I think so," Ben replied. "But I'm afraid we're not at liberty to discuss it."

~o~

Will could hear the agitated voices coming through the heavy oak doors to the Council chambers; one of the Aides stationed outside grinned wryly at his approach. "Maybe I should just tell them lunch is served," the man wisecracked.

"They all want to eat me alive, huh?" Will shot back.

"Better you than me," came the rejoinder as the Aide opened the door and announced him—or tried to. The cacophony continued unabated.

Will's presence went completely unnoticed for a full minute; when the heated argument showed no sign of letting up, he stuck two fingers into his mouth and let out an earsplittingly shrill whistle.

A few of the Councilors jumped in their seats at the sound, and the silence that followed was as deafening as the shouting that had preceded it. It lasted only a moment, however, before someone demanded, "Just who do you think you are?"

"The only one in this room who can explain what just happened, sir," Will answered quietly. It was the best way to deal with someone prone to shouting, or who was looking for a fight: Keep your voice quiet and your manner calm, and eventually he'll either calm down, or, in the latter case, go looking elsewhere.

"Please do," came from one of the junior members—Brindle, Will remembered her name, a member of his own graduating class to whom he had rarely paid any attention. She had been one of the older recruits in that class and was in her early forties now, one of those anal characters who always seemed to end up in high administrative places. She'd graduated as salutatorian of their class, with a political ambition that probably would have taken her very far in her home era, so it was no real surprise that she'd been chosen for the Council in her mid-thirties, one of the youngest ever to reach that office. The next youngest member of the Council, Voyager Kane, was a good ten to fifteen years her senior.

With a sigh, Will began his lecture; when he was done, they stared at him, flabbergasted. "Let him sit for the trial?!" came the inevitable demand. "He doesn't know the first thing about our procedures or the Code!"

"Actually, he does," Will pointed out. "Because of a complicated phenomenon called 'brainwave crossing' that occurs during a Leap, this man can access the host's memories to a certain extent, which seems to vary depending on the degree of need."

"But you won't tell us his name."

"Not now. I can't, and the one person who can authorize me to tell you, isn't here."

"You're sure he'll be back."

"Positive. But in the meantime, for his safety, and for the safety of the space-time continuum, you all have to accept our visitor as Professor Garth for the time being. I really can't give you much more than that without a crash course in quantum physics, and we don't have the time. If it makes you feel better, I can stay right by him during the trial to coach him."

"How is it that you can acknowledge who he really is?"

"Because, as you will find out if you read my dossier in the Archives, I worked on his project before I came here."

"But you weren't one of those 'Leapers.'"

"No. I was one of those who maintained the equipment that made it possible, as well as developing ways to improve the process." He shrugged. "It's what made TE such a natural choice for me."