Max glanced down at her phone. 9:10 am. Five more minutes 'til go-time. She stood up to stretch, only a few feet from the mossy edge of the cliff. It's really peaceful up here. So much life. Tropical bugs and birds and frogs sang over each other in the background. Or maybe they were just calling each other names. It was hard to tell. They seemed enthusiastic, whatever their intent.
Around her, dense green rainforests covered the surrounding hills, abruptly flattening to checkered farmland on the wide valley floor below. The clouds closed in, right on schedule.
An agricultural shell company purchased the land and upgraded the roads early last year. Connected them to wide ramps hidden beneath cover structures and behind barn doors. The passages plunged several stories underground to the fabrication and pre-assembly areas. Almost all of the prep work had been done below, nearly all of that automated. The farms continued above, undisturbed. The rock she'd removed to create the workspaces ended up as a new fish habitat in the waters offshore to the west. Nothing wasted.
She yawned. The sun disappeared, throwing it all into shadow. She tapped her earpiece. "Time-check. Three minutes. Everybody good down there, Jorge?"
A static break. "Business as usual, boss. We're ready any time. Over."
Her phone ticked down the final two. "Counting down from five seconds. Good luck in there!"
Static. "See you."
And clear…
Max shifted the valley into high speed, fell backward into the sofa, kicking her legs out. Her earpiece popped once, went silent. She'd be up here for another forty-five minutes. No reason to be uncomfortable. She reached over and pulled an iced coffee from the portable cooler beside her, twisting the lid. Sipped. She'd been awake for a few hours already, but it was still only 6am at home. She valiantly fought back another yawn, lost.
Inside the bubble, down in the valley, a year would pass. A little over eight days for each minute on the outside. She had a wide traversable gradient between the two timeframes, so there was no visible hard edge over the valley. Just a persistent optical distortion. That cross-fade allowed heat, air and any wildlife along the borders to pass without problems, while leaving a means for workers to make their way out for any emergencies they couldn't handle. There were only a few hundred people inside. The wide variety of specialty bots outnumbered those three to one.
She set up a second gradient - this one wide, flat and horizontal - placed high above the valley. Time inside ran much more slowly. If she had it right, the two layers would overlap when seen from above, masking the heat bloom for any spy-sats monitoring through the clouds in infrared.
She picked up her guitar, absently strummed a few chords to accompany the wildlife. Vibrations in time…
After only a couple of minutes, she could see the assembly structures begin to take shape. Gantries and cranes, supportive latticework. Hours flew by each second. She wouldn't see any people; they were too far away and moving too fast. But some of the big robotic helpers would stick to one place for a while - she saw a few pop in and out. Like watching a time-lapse…
Yes. Because it's actually a time lapse, genius…
Sigh. Least I'm awake enough to crack myself up. Alone. In a forest. On a couch. Random. Okay, maybe not completely alone I guess. "Aww. Hey there, li'l guy. You a local, or one of ours?"
The hummingbird landed on the highest tip of her guitar's headstock. Its belly all shimmering green iridescence. Its tail ended in two long skinny stalks with round deedley-boppers on the ends, like tiny racquets. She smiled, delighted. It preened its left wing briefly before darting away in a blur.
Native, I guess. Thanks for hanging out. Guess we must all seem like a time lapse to you…
Her fingers returned, picked out a slow happy melody as her mind wandered.
She'd thought about it a few times over the years. The correlation between the size of a critter and the rate of its heartbeat. Thermodynamics, surface to mass ratios. All played their part. But as she understood it, the average lifespan for any animal was about a billion heartbeats. So smaller ones with the faster hearts tended to live shorter lives than the larger ones. But they also had shorter runs of nerve fibers, smaller distance across the brain, faster metabolisms. Their vision, awareness, decision making, and movements were all sped up… Evolutionary advantages. Perceiving more information per unit of time, and able to act on it. Flies, hummingbirds, mice. Nervous. Darty. At the other end of the scale, elephants, whales, plodding along in slow motion, seemingly unconcerned. People somewhere between.
It was like the less mass or inertia you had, the faster your journey through time relative to the others. They'd all experience a similarly full lifespan in their own internal frame of reference though. So many lives sharing the same spaces, but traveling through time at wildly different rates… Let's not even get into plants and trees and stuff…
Maybe what she was doing below wasn't so weird after all.
Chloe sipped at her coffee, feet up on the table. Emo stretched out, upside down between her knees. Couldn't possibly be comfortable, but he purred away. She rubbed his fuzzy little belly. He trapped her hand, kicking with his back legs and gnawing at her fingertips for all he was worth. It was cute, but she didn't want to encourage biting. Took a while to break him of that last time.
"Boop."
Chloe booped him on the nose. Scratched his chin. He settled down, stretched. Back to air-biscuits…
Sun wasn't up yet, but the eastern sky was beginning to lighten.
She heard Max get up to leave a couple of hours ago, felt her soft minty kiss goodbye. She'd be back in a couple of hours. Maybe in time for a late breakfast. Chloe would hold off, just in case.
On one glass wall, she'd superimposed ten screens of news. Quick morning scan. She didn't really need to project them, but there was something about using her eyes and ears. Anachronistic. Comforting in a way.
Usual horror show mixed in with the usual trivial bullshit garbage. A town recaptured from insurgents, who'd taken it from loyalists, who'd 'liberated' it from the same insurgents months before. Each new wave of violence rolling over the people who actually lived there. The ones left, anyway. What had been home to generations of families was mostly rubble. Not for the first time in history, unfortunately.
A new definition of 'normal' imposed from outside. She understood the tragedy of that acceptance. Second hand, but no less real. The quick sharp grief of watching everything you thought you had, that illusion of stability and normalcy that seemed so solid… the safety of loved ones… all gone in a span of days. Anger and grief on hold as survival asserted its demands. Fight. Flight. Or hunker down?
For their final house in Seattle, later this century, it was fire. Rioters, angry beyond reason, but not without reason. Again. The push. The shove. Violence from a small number hidden inside the larger group of people. Then the hard authoritarian push back. Familiar pattern. There was nothing Max could do about the macro. Movements of history. Get them out of the way. That was it. Mostly.
Even the fire was too big. Whole neighborhood went up. She managed to push a rewind close enough to the beginning, ran back into the inferno to find an unburned picture. Sleeve on fire, choking on hot smoke, she used it to photo-jump - went back two weeks to give Chloe a warning. It gave them time to pack up, move their stuff into storage across town at least. They tried to warn folks that something bad was coming, but…why should anyone believe them? Max was relieved to find them in a motel across the city when returned from the jump weeks later. TV tuned to the destruction in their old neighborhood. Devastating, but still better than the alternative she'd left.
More than a few close calls over the years. Each was different.
They'd always come out okay. Many didn't. There were almost always survivors. The grief, the sorrow, the numb of taking in what remained. It showed in their eyes, mostly. After. Just like she was seeing on the screens in front of her. She'd seen it too many times. Different for each person. But the same in every era. Try to understand what happened. Try to rebuild, or pick up and go? How to even begin? Who was still here? Who was left to help bury the dead? Do the work of repair or rebuilding? How could they pay them? How long would the calm last until the next whatthefuckever? Where else could they go that was any different, and could they make the journey? How could they possibly leave their loves, their lost dead behind? What choice did they have?
Made her sad. And a little angry at the repeating patterns. The people most affected were always the least involved. No one wanted that to be their world… But…everything was so fragile, really. A series of unspoken shared agreements. Honored until they broke down...
We were so much younger then. If we could go back and do it all over again as we are now, shit would go a lot different…
Oh. Wait…I'm an idiot…
The various broadcasts on the glass segued roughly from one human tragedy to another, broken only by enthusiastic ads for new cars or toilet paper… Then the inevitable shift to tattling celebrity gossip, with no sense of shame or irony.
Nothing new on any front. Only the names ever changed.
Long term prevention. Redefining civilization. Picking up the pieces when they fell. Chloe knew in her heart it was the right strategy. But…none of that made it go away for those people, right there, right now… It was fucked up. They mattered too.
You're not responsible for all the lives you couldn't save… Something she'd said to Max once. Must have been a lifetime ago.
Take your own advice, dude.
Yes, but…don't you think you might have saved more? If you'd tried a little harder? Been a little better?
…stop.
She noted the name of the town. Maybe there was something they could do for the beleaguered survivors. Food. Water. Something.
Or maybe a goddamn superhero style airdrop like a motherfuckin' boss - tell both sides to clear the fuck out… Wanna kill each other? Plenty of empty space twenty miles that way. Have at it, jackasses… Just stop rollin' through other people's houses…
She didn't want to be a dick, exactly - and she recognized the irony of the observation, given her core anti-authority vibe. But some of these fuckers clearly needed a kick in the ass - and some long-term adult supervision…
Max checked the progress against the clock. About the halfway point for each, so that was a good sign things were on track. The black exterior of the cube was nearly finished. Build progress of the internal floor plans would closely follow along under the finished shell. Like putting together a gigantic 3d puzzle.
Other detail work would take a little longer. Plumbing, power, air systems, fit and finish on the interior spaces; the twin hamster wheels nestled just inside opposing faces; each spanning five coaxial stories in radius, twenty feet in width. The outermost levels would simulate half of earth's gravity at three revolutions per minute, but they'd probably stick to two for comfort. The rest of the station was designed for microgravity.
After the finishing touches, they had months of shakedown testing planned before operations could safely begin. Skywatch was destined for orbit around the sun at the second Lagrange point - a million miles away, in the permanent shadow of the earth. Mix of low-G and zero-G R&D, manufacturing, observation, pure science. Build bays to construct components for the next generation stations and craft…
Mining. Space-docks. Mega-blimps bound for Venus. A system for draining dangerous radiation from the Van Allen belts around Earth… Busy schedule.
Had to start somewhere.
Set against the wide valley below, it didn't appear all that imposing. A little more than a hundred-twenty feet on each side; about the profile of a ten story office building. Deceptively heavy here on earth though. Internal steel walls bulked up along the up-down axis to help distribute the load of the sky-side during construction, with the side benefit of playing nice with magnets once the station went live. By the time they were done, it would weigh more than the largest aircraft carrier ever built.
Mostly because of the external shell. It was structural, but pulled double-duty as passive shielding. The innermost layer was half of the shell's total thickness; six feet of programmable, structurally reinforced concrete. Thin layers of ceramic insulated copper strips were next. Two feet of lead plating over that accounted for more than half the total mass. And once in orbit, the three-foot layer of water contained in the inches-thick skin of the plastic bladders would play out the balance. She'd fill each of the six water layers by wormhole after it was up. Each self-healing material layer was tuned for a different range of threats, even the thick plastic of the liner. In total, the composite shielding would protect everything inside from the high energy particles and many forms of solar and cosmic radiation they'd encounter in space. Micrometeoroids to high energy iron nuclei…secondary x-ray scatters to…nearby nukes…whatever.
Possibly overkill, but they also wanted the freedom to move it around the solar system without stopping to retrofit for safety before each new stop. Mostly modern materials and construction techniques. Meant they could begin without having to wait years for production of the exotic stuff to scale up.
Space wasn't kind to life, and Chloe had designed them a well-insulated tank. It was the kind of hardened station no sane engineer on earth would ever think to build. At the lowest aspirational commercial cost of a thousand dollars a pound, it would take more than two-hundred-billion just to lift the raw materials and components into orbit with conventional rockets. At the current prices charged by government launch programs, ten times that.
Fortunately, Max was their space program, so none of that mattered.
And I'm fueled by coffee, bitches.
Reminded, she paused her musical noodling to take a sip, glanced down at her phone again.
Twenty minutes…
James Andersen maintained his state of relative defocus, limiting his attentions to an ambient self-awareness and the most obvious physical sensations of the here and now, without judgement or analysis. One. Nothing. Same. Imperfect, but… a state of moving inexorably toward statelessness.
His cell was the inside of a ball. White. Lit from above, uniform diffusion. Neutral temperature. A slightly outset door to the front. He found that almost any small sound he produced would resonate in this cavity. The room itself reflected and refocused him back to himself. Everything about his environment assisted in his meditations.
He sat in an easy lotus position, feet resting on opposite thighs. For the past indeterminate block of time, he'd balanced with his arms down, carrying all of his weight on thumbs and two fingers of each hand. It was his first time in a reduced gravity environment. He didn't think about what or how. Didn't bring any questions into focus.
Just acknowledged the lightness of being.
Breath and heart the waves of the universe.
Consciousness and existence the twin mirrors of his reality…
Max popped back home around 10am, Vegas time. An hour after delivering the first shakedown crew to their new orbital platform, and a half hour after finishing up with the human build crew in Ecuador. She set her guitar in its stand, next to the side table in their bedroom. Checked the message box out of habit. Empty.
Emo sprawled sideways, climbing a sun patch in slow motion across their puffy bedcovers. Tiny motes drifted sideways through the sunbeam.
She kicked off her shoes, crawled in next to him for a shared cat nap. By the time she woke up, the sun patch was on the floor, nearly back outside. Emo was on her hip, playing king of the hill. Paws tucked in front, eyes mostly closed, purring softly. The tiniest and fuzziest of cat-loafs.
D'aww.
She looked at the clock. Noon. Oops. Longer than she meant to, but no big deal. She stretched, rewound, watched the sun patch race back onto the bed, stopping at her arrival time. She rolled off the other way, leaving Emo sprawled sideways, sleepy, still chasing the light.
She stretched again on her way to the door, called out in a half yawn, "Hey Chloe - you home?" She'd prolly be in her office or some random downstairs lab helping out with some project or another.
A faraway voice, "Hey! In here, Max."
The bedroom gave way to Chloe's office as Max lazily folded across the small distance between them. Chloe sat forward in her red chair, chin on her hands, half a dozen holos projected in empty space.
"Whatcha doing?" asked Max, leaning in from the side to give her a quick hello kiss. Looked like architectural models.
Chloe turned her head to nuzzle for a sec. "Hey… uh, chores mostly. Everything go okay?"
"Yeah. All good. We're the proud owners of a shiny new super-secret space fort. I mean, it's not actually shiny, but you know what I mean."
Chloe shrugged. "And only secret 'til someone notices it. I give it a few days, tops."
"That fast you think?" Max leaned against the desk.
"Yup. Stealth in space isn't really a thing. You saw the observatory satellites hanging out there, right? Herschel, WMAP, Planck and the others?"
"Well, I mean, space is pretty big - and it's…night out there all the time, so…no? I'm just the time shifter and heavy lifter, yo."
Chloe laughed, leaned back. "Well, okay, so there's a handful of other sats out there where you parked. We're pretty massive, and L2's only metastable, so our gravity's gonna tug them around. People running them will have to correct the drift eventually if we don't do it for them. So they'll notice for sure. And then there's amateurs with telescopes scanning the skies all the time. We're on the dark side, so no bright optical blips, but we'll transit a star or something at some point. Matter of time. That, and for any semi-pros, we're pretty much a giant fucking flare in infrared, so…there's that."
"Should we work a cover story with Jillian or something? We haven't really talked about this part."
"Yeah - no, we did, but you weren't in any of those threads I don't think. We could. But another option is to not claim it."
"…and let people think it's a UFO or something? That seems kinda mean."
"They'll assume it's military. Somebody's. Darkstar shit or something. Happens all the time. NASA and ESA are the only ones who'll have a guesstimate at our mass 'cause of their own sat corrections. And they'll be annoyed, but probably assume the same thing. We don't have to do anything now. Plan was to let it ride. See where it goes, if it goes anywhere at all. Streisand effect, etc."
"Fair enough."
"Besides, it's not like anyone else can get up there to look in a window or anything."
"Thought your people didn't use windows 'cause they were structural weaknesses?"
"Comedian." The holos went dark. Chloe swiveled. "So - more later?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Okay. Switching topics - still good for our little afternoon adventure?"
Max stood up straight, chin high. "I am. Took a power-nap just now, and made snack kits for us before I left this morning. Everything's in the fridge ready to roll. It's so on."
Chloe got up, tucked her chair under the desk. "Wow. Didn't expect that. I didn't think you were all that into this?"
"What? We'll be hanging out. I'm good. Come on, Chloe. I tease you, but you know… If you're happy, I'm happy. And I know how much you're looking forward to this. Of course we'll have fun. Duh. Besides, what could possibly go wrong?" Max gave her a playful look before taking her hand to pull her out of the office and down the hall.
"You had to fucking say it…"
"You know I'll always hold your beer, Chloe." She turned back to send her an air kiss.
Chloe laughed as they headed off to the kitchen. "Funny… But yeah - this is gonna rule. I mean, it's like legit historical mystery shit, dude. I really am curious 'bout what we'll find…"
Max considered. "Probably a lot of grumpy shooty dudes in army pants? And at the end, some dusty old storage room full of file cabinets and musty paper about failed airplane designs from the long long ago…"
Chloe let go of Max, moved to the fridge. "Wow. Scully much?" She collected the snack kits into a bag, continued enthusiastically, "Peanut butter and celery? You're so cute. And I don't know, I was thinking more like the entrance to an underground alien city, or…a galactic command center, or…or maybe a Stargate or something!"
"Wait… I thought that was in Cheyenne Mountain?"
"Yeah, no, it is. But the second gate…"
"…Antarctica. Right. Stored at Area 51. But didn't they drop that into a star? Destroyed a whole system? Never mind."
"Anyway… It's Area fucking 51."
"…adjacent." added Max.
"Yeah, okay, so S4's one hill over, big whoop. But I mean, there's gotta be something there, right? At least a torn apart UFO anti-gravity drive maybe?"
"Maybe. But you'll be in charge of translating if we run into any mechanics who don't speak Earthican."
"Deal. So I was thinking we'd drive. Least part-way. We can stop for lunch, if that's cool?" Chloe paused.
"You know I could eat. In town?"
Chloe leaned on the counter, "No. There's a little stop off about half way, out on the Extraterrestrial Highway. Diner. Little A'le'Inn?"
Max smiled. Nodded. "Of course there is. Wait, was that the place in 'Paul'?"
"Yep. So goddamn fantastic. They have a pool table too! Almost as excited to go there as the real deal. I want a mug. And… maybe an alien blow-up doll if they have them…"
"…wow."
Chloe shrugged. "Hey. Don't judge. I didn't give you shit last week when you made me braid my hair back for your Spectre and Shadow Broker role-play…"
Max bit her lower lip, blinked at Chloe. "Yeah… not sayin' another word."
Chloe merged onto the highway onramp. Snacks packed, Max in the passenger seat, they'd pulled out of the garage exit a few minutes ago. Given the potential for unpaved-roads, she'd thought about dirt bikes. Didn't figure Max would go for it. Range Rover made the most sense. And they'd be able to hear each other, which was a bonus.
The sun was behind them, halfway up the bright blue sky.
Chloe glanced toward Max. "Oh, so tell me more about this morning?"
Max put her sneakered feet up on the dash. "Like I said, it went good. I really like it down there. Locals were super friendly, and the countryside was so pretty. Met a real hummingbird. So that was cool."
"Mary fucking Poppins over here…" Chloe shook her head with a grin.
"Heh. Anyway, to watch it go together, pretty much right before my eyes… I don't know. Even for me, stuff like that never gets old."
"Any advice from the foreman dudes before you bailed?" Chloe was curious to see if they'd run into any real problems.
"Yeah. Checked in with them after. You'll get the logs and talk to them and stuff yourself too, I guess. Seemed like they were worried about it all coming together at first. But in the end, Jorge said it was more like assembling a giant watch than anything else. Complicated, but everything fit in its place."
"That was a watch pun? Right? Complications? Nevermind. They say how the bots did? Working around people I mean?"
"Saul seemed pretty impressed. Mostly went on about their teamwork, and how fast and accurate they were compared to what a person could do. Not sure how the workers felt, not that it matters to them now, I guess. But, I think seeing it all made him a little sad for the future of human labor."
"I'm sure. It's gotta be weird, going from tons of people building subs to this, right? A navy shipyard is not the same thing as a jungle time-bubble full of robots building a space station."
Max laughed. "Yeah. No. Not remotely, when you put it like that. But, you know, he did say, and I quote, 'If this was an all meat crew, it would have taken eight times as long to end up half as true.'"
"So that's a compliment I guess… And what about our resident ESA sat-dude? Pelu? Fuck, that guy was a grumpy motherfucker in meetings."
"He cried a little."
"Wait, really?"
"Yeah - it was kindof sweet."
"I don't get it. Why? All he does is build space shit…"
"I think that's kinda why, actually. We talked a little. You know, the guy spends his whole career pushing tiny probes into space. But his generation, I guess grew up right around the moon landings. He, uh…said everyone thought it was gonna be like the real beginning of this major historical shift. The future, with a big capital 'F', you know? Like there was no doubt we'd have people living in cities out there by now. But after a few trips to the moon, everything just sorta stopped. Forty plus years of bus drivers servicing low earth orbit, but… leaving the rest behind like an abandoned dream…without a really good explanation."
"Well, okay. That I can understand. I mean, you know how I feel about flying cars…" Chloe said.
"Right? But to come from there, go through that, and then to head up a build on something…like this…"
"Back on track signal, maybe? So part real, but mostly symbolic?"
"Yeah. I don't know. It was like tears of almost gratitude mixed with a real sort of hope for what's next. Excitement more. A first new step. Optimism. I didn't expect that. Should have, maybe. Everything was so brand new to everyone at the end of the last loop, so people's reactions to our little satellite rocket launches weren't mixed with that same sort of nostalgia on top of it, you know?" Max looked outside.
Chloe noticed the traffic thinning out. "I think sometimes you and I underestimate the way a lot of this shit makes people feel... So, what, it's got you maybe rethinking the whole 'secret' part of the secret fort, or?"
"Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I know why. But kinda, I don't know…"
Chloe shrugged. "My hero. Eloquent and decisive." She smiled and turned to Max.
"I hate you."
"Heh. You love me and you know it… And no rush on figuring out the whole secret identity versus not thing. Not like any of these decisions have consequences - beyond potential redo-loop time for you."
"That's so not true. I mean, it's still real for everyone while it's real. And for me. And we know at least one branch continued on its own after I left, so… Still have to take care not to keep forking the universe."
"So not picking that one up. Anyway, you know where I am on this secrecy stuff, my deerest lord… So…" Chloe laughed, tapped out a rim-shot on the steering wheel. "Related topic - how much space-cash do you owe me after the rollback?"
Max sighed. "Right. Uh…seven dollars."
"Seven? Wait. Really? Not 8 or 6? What happened? Someone die? Or was there a threesome? It was totally a threesome wasn't it?"
Max looked out to the highway. They were leaving the edge of the city. "No. You were right. There were like four couples. Three of them wanted to keep their year inside together, after it was done. I totally get it. I would if it was us."
"What happened with the last two peeps?"
"Ah. Apparently she thought they were only together because it was gonna be erased anyway. So after the job, she joined everyone else getting spun back. She…wanted to forget. He chose to remember anyway. Even after learning that she wouldn't."
"Shit. That's fucked up. So he lost a year to keep the memories of a girl who chose to forget him?"
"I know, right? I don't know. Anyway, seven bucks. I'll…hit you back later."
"K. Don't…make me send tiny people to collect."
"I'm good for it. But…wait…what do you mean 'tiny people'?!"
"I know where you live, Caulfield."
"That's…creepy, and…really not an answer…"
Jacob rubbed his eyes. They'd been debating among themselves since the start of the conference call. Nearly a hundred petulant little squares spread across three monitors… They represented the subset of major houses in the Americas that had felt her influence in one way or another. All the more irritating in the abstract, with their voices heavily modulated natural language or machine translations, their faces represented by animated cartoon avatars. Another simple layer of obfuscation. The streams were encrypted, which would flag them for intercept at the backbone. But the lightly encrypted wrapper would crack first, revealing code marking these as privileged conversations to be purged from tracking systems, unread.
Jacob knew most of them, and some knew each other's identities independently. But for now, they referred to each other by their temporary visuals. He'd given them time to express themselves, but was hearing no real evidence they'd made headway. Par. Too many. Most had the broad strokes, but not all were deeply involved in the day to day details of even their own internal hierarchies. Lots of moving parts. He had a directive for them before the end though. And a hard stop of his own in half an hour. "Apologies ladies and gentlemen. Obviously, emotions are running high. But I'll need to keep us on track with our agenda today."
An animated carrot asked, "What of Andersen? The others? You've had success locating them?"
"Unfortunately not. Operating theory is that they've found a way to block accurate readings."
A scaly lizard on the outer edge of the leftmost screen asked "How is that possible? We have responsibilities to our overseas partners. Assurances were given. What's your plan to address this failure of intelligence?"
I'm certain that was yours… Jacob self-edited before speaking more deliberately. "I'd like to keep us focused on the more fundamental issues, but I suppose this is related. What I'm hearing you ask is if I have a plan to heal your self-inflicted wounds? If it's any consolation, the Board has other concerns."
A blue boot asked, "The rest of the Board is aware?"
"Becoming. Of course. What did you expect? Andersen isn't some low IQ new-hire. He's compartmented, junior, but promising. And now his status has changed from asset to risk. And it's another unsanctioned public failure with her as the objective. Raises flags of the 'what were you thinking' kind. He shouldn't have been there. There shouldn't have even been a 'there' there, if we're being complete. Which goes back to the larger topic of non-coherence.
"Your voluntary interactions with her haven't gone well. I'm using 'your' in the inclusive sense here. History repeats. But it's unclear how much of that is her, and how much has been a result of the process and management breakdowns on our end. From the start. There's a reason we have protocols for evaluating the odd emerging talents. They've proven to be tremendous assets for all of us when properly pipelined and managed. And to be fair, her first evaluation and contact team performed exceptionally well…"
"Except that they're working for her now…" said an old-timey milk bottle.
"Those that remain, yes. But it's the same trend line. Protocols apply to all of us. Mister Bear's organizations had a responsibility to follow them. Instead, he allowed a handful of lesser subordinates in the western US to run around unsupervised, fueled by a dangerous combination of ignorance, arrogance and fear. They, in turn, were too easily swayed, and their efforts ultimately redirected, by an underling's warnings and reckless enthusiasms… Collectively went off the reservation, and created a formidable enemy where we should have had a useful ally. Or at worst, a disinterested, if occasionally cooperative, third party.
"Once her uniqueness had been suspected, the original teams should have been allowed to complete a full and proper analysis, invisibly - or at least without provocation - before presenting their findings. The Board or upper echelons would have been consulted with the fullness of understanding, to assist in formulating a coherent, unified and considered direction, in harmony with existing plans.
"Mister Bear and his lieutenants had a responsibility to be aware, to lead, and maintain effective discipline and harmony. Not merely preside over the catastrophic failure of two operations combined by ground level subordinates. They should have stepped in at the first signs of deviation. Ensured that she was lightly quarantined until further direction came down. Or at the least, behaved in a more neutral manner. Reached some form of détente with her. All of the preliminary field assessments pointed in that direction. It was the correct advice, and should have been followed."
A yellow dandelion spoke. "We never did see a full assessment."
"That's right. We have anecdotes, video, but without comprehensive data or analysis. We know what we know, but it's not enough given the size of the gaps. Mister Bear's people ensured that when they proactively cut her evaluation short to merge with Stirling's ongoing assignment to catalyze a new wave of western defense spending."
A jaunty red bear avatar, Mister Bear, interrupted. "I'm sick of this armchair quarterbacking. I've been patient while people continue to distort facts to throw us under the bus on this. Enough. She lifted a fucking mountain. We've left her alone since. None of this current crisis was our doing. As far as I know, none of the major houses in the States were even made aware until after it hit broadcast… As for the past, not one of us can manage the big picture if our focus is that far down in the weeds. We can't operate without delegation, and delegation can't operate without a measure of trust."
"And trust at our level demands verification. We all walk that line. It's the 'management' part of management. If it were easy…" reminded Jacob.
"That went down a year before your father…before…you took the Chair anyway. You didn't have the raw data they were generating on her. It was obvious she was aberrant. Only just awakening to her talent, which, coupled with the apparent immensity of her power, increased the urgency to act. She posed a significant, immediate threat. They saw a small window of opportunity, took the initiative and the best shot they had. You didn't see what they were seeing in real time…"
"So they handed her a live atomic bomb. We still don't know where she's keeping it. And I'm guessing you didn't see what they were seeing in real time either, or you would have stepped in? Would be great if we could go over that information now. But…oh, that's right. The primary data collected before the incident has been systematically erased… everywhere."
"We…still have one backup set…"
"One. Which we don't dare try to access after what happened to the next-to-the-last backup. And that system had a fresh install and a hard air-gap. We still don't have any idea how she's doing that. Or if she's doing it. Which is symptomatic of the problem. Are you all seeing the pattern? Blindfolds belong on the target, not the members of the firing squad."
"What about her partner? Price?" asked a slice of frosted angel-food cake.
"What about her?" Jacob said.
"Could she be doing it? She doesn't have the transcripts, but she has a technical mindset."
"I'm certain this kind of thing takes a higher skill level than changing her grades…" said a steaming iron.
The cake answered, "That's showing your own ignorance. You haven't had to sidestep their hacking teams. They've recruited a formidable technical and scientific bench. In addition to support from other disciplines. You've all seen the footage from New Year's. It's been all over the internet. Price was the main target. Our intended catalyst to force the Caulfield girl to travel backward in time to prevent her from being killed. It was supposed to emotionally unbalance her, and provide motivation to follow the trail to Andersen's toybox alone. Now it didn't change the outcome, but none of that preventive action happened as far as we can tell. Instead, Price used some sort of advanced defensive technology we haven't seen before to save herself. What is it? Where did it come from?"
A raccoon wizard said, "Fuck that. They were allowed to publicly patent a cold fusion reactor design type none of us own or control. The design is published on the internet. Cat's out of that bag. Where did that come from?"
The lizard interjected, "Science. It's not too surprising to my people. Like the cake said, they've recruited a formidable bench, active in many fields. The final straw that led to this recent ill-fated attempt to disable her. There are many more questions - how did Price walk away from the street explosion after, anyway? Much like the attack on the gallery party, it doesn't appear as though Caulfield prevented it or interfered at all… Still, she walked away on her own? How?"
Jacob responded, "This is what I'm getting at. Rogue actions based on insufficient intel have to stop. They aren't working. You believe teaming up with each other makes up for that, gives you legitimacy. But it doesn't. You don't even know what you don't know right now. And as an aside to Mister Bear, I need to apologize. I wasn't trying to throw you under the bus earlier. I only used you for illustration purposes. The others are up next. I think we all know how things can break in the real world. But we don't get to live through too many excuses at this altitude.
"End of the day, if she'd been left alone two years ago, she'd be living a quiet life of ignorance with no reason to suspect we existed at all. Our superiors would have had concrete assessments and a wider range of options for dealing with her. And she wouldn't have felt any push into this disruptive social entrepreneurship crusade she's on. None of our precogs saw that coming - and left unchecked, it'll prove far more damaging to our collective futures than her talents alone would be."
"One is the threat protecting the other…" said a rainbow sno-cone.
"True enough. And I know that's what some of you are reacting to. For what it's worth, the Board and upper echelons are concerned about this as well.
"Many of you were critical of how she'd been handled in the past, but the most recent events are an extension of this same sort of breakdown. Deliberately, this time. It's a result of poor judgement and unilateral action, taken in a region outside any of your mandates, without coordination or Board approval. My predecessor remained a singular voice of reason on this issue here in the Americas. A consistent advocate for a non-confrontational path - pending determination of the proper course by the hierarchy. As Regional Chair, and by protocol, that should have been enough for all of you.
"But you ignored process, ignored the hierarchy, schemed sideways beyond your stations, went outside the roles and direction you inherited - and with less understanding than we had before, enflamed the situation further with a series of very public actions that had little chance of success. This time, to Andersen's assurances."
"But…"
Jacob hard-muted the carrot. "Please understand, this isn't an attack - it's a level set. This house has always advocated for all of your interests with the Board, and will continue to do so. We're beyond inter-family squabbles. In the Board's eyes, we're all to blame for where we are. The higher echelons don't care to discriminate, and some are now paying close attention. I shouldn't have to say this, but we really don't want to remain the focus of their attention."
The lizard remained quiet. The frosted cake slice spoke up. "We are where we are. She and her blind little mice have been stumbling into critical interests and operations around the world. And she's threatened to completely destabilize it with these wild energy goals. We're already seeing a chilling effect on new long term investments. She's pushing out from the US. The local houses did nothing. None of the supposed higher ups took action. We were getting a lot of pressure from our peers overseas. What else could we do?"
Jacob responded. "Like my father, I've vocally disagreed with your direction on this in the past, but I do understand how you all got there. And between you and me, I know the Board does too. And, if it had worked, we'd all be having a very different sort of conversation right now. But…it didn't."
A trout chimed in. "Since we're flying close to the sun here… What happened before, accepted. That error clearly belongs with regional leadership in the US, despite protestations. But since 2014, her recruitment of talents, expanding operations, and commercialization of objects of political and economic chaos have all moved well beyond the borders of the States… We have a shared responsibility to protect the parts we've been entrusted with - and when threatened, come together with others to protect the whole. And we have an absolute right to defend our own individual pursuits. As do our counterparts elsewhere in the world. We haven't behaved recklessly - we were concerned for all of our interests. Which are the hierarchy's as well. Where were they?"
Jacob said flatly, "Don't presume that you understand their motivations or process of deliberation. Their plans, our plans, unfold and adapt on the scale of decades. Centuries. Millennia. She's been a variable for a couple of years. Although certain economic and social threats loom large, her actual disruptions to date have been minor. Aside from the ones we've thrown her into. We should never have given her a reason to be on the defensive at all."
"She's gone well beyond defensive. Someone had to do something!"
"Not you. Not without guidance and coordination. Mutual alignment. Am I muted here? Translation working? Are any of you listening? And no. You gave her the reason to have her own counter-agenda, but she hasn't truly gone on the offensive yet."
"How can you say that?" asked a prickly green cactus.
"We're still here." Jacob answered. "Listen, the girl can travel through time. Presumably, backward from her own future as well. If she was to discover our identities at any point in her life, she would have shared them with herself already. That we're still here means she hasn't. So, in the future, she's either been killed, disabled or controlled. Killing her seems not to work very well. So odds are, she's being managed somehow. Which means returned to a neutral state relative to the hierarchy, or prevented from interfering in some other way. Take comfort in that. It means we win."
The cactus offered, "Or her future self knows, or feels, that she doesn't need to mess with time to get her way. It's an emerging theme in this conversation, and perhaps the more frightening thought."
Jacob replied, "You might be right of course. We'll have to see. We should sincerely hope that she can still be managed or contained. I fear what those above the Board might do otherwise. But at the very least, with benefit of hindsight, we can all hopefully agree that something in our approach needs to change. I'm letting you know those changes will be designed above our pay grade. And globally coordinated this time. You'll be informed of your parts when or if they deem it useful or necessary. They're concerned about the same things we are. The disagreement is only that you acted laterally, outside the hierarchy, and that you failed. Possibly complicating their paths to an eventual solution."
The cartoon heads were silent.
He continued. "It's the way it has to be. We inherit a certain amount of autonomy with our positions, along with the outlines of the part we and our legacies and subordinate organizations are expected to play. When everyone does what's expected, our obligations are met. And we're free to carry on with our own interests and agendas, comfortably enjoying our families, our wealth, and our privilege. Everything is in harmony, and the larger movements progress around us over generations, as they should.
"When we deviate, notes are misplayed. Timing for all is disrupted, and the greater composition unravels.
"So that's where we are now. Momentarily uncomfortable, reminded that none of us here are the largest fish in the largest sea. But we are part of a whole, and that whole can't function if everyone's off doing their own thing. I'm not criticizing anyone in particular, but she's going to take a more measured, strategic approach. If there's a message from the Board, reflecting the intentions of the upper echelons, that's it. 'Stand down'.
"They understand there will be minor disruptions until they resolve this. But you are instructed to do nothing further to annoy her. Pass it along. No offense or defense. If any of your people bump up against her, they're to quietly withdraw. It's not worth the confrontation for the moment. My peers elsewhere in the world are engaged in similar corrective conversations with your peers as we speak, so there won't be any more outside pressure. There is no latitude in this though - it really is a full stop with her."
"So. What. We sit quietly and hope she goes away?" asked an anthropomorphic coffee pot.
Jacob said, "Maybe. If that would work. No one lives forever. Otherwise, it's to your superiors to decide, as it should have been from the start. But I believe their goal is to get her back to a controllable, or at least predictable, neutral. Or permanently disrupt her ability to disrupt our collective aims and activities."
"How will they do this?"
"I can't say. I sat in on a few of the Board level ideation sessions, but I'm not sure what approach they'll all ultimately choose to take. They only asked that I relay the message to stop any further independent antagonisms. I mentioned there might be a non-confrontational way for us to calm things in the interim, however. Never occurred to any of you to simply talk with her? One to one?"
Mister Bear said in a huff, "She's a domestic problem. I'll work with a few of the other houses. We'll handle her. Make an appointment. Send Gabriel maybe. Demand that she returns Andersen to you all."
Jacob shook his head. "Or…? Or what? Have you been listening to any of this?" He'd missed Jacob's point completely. And was obviously tone-deaf to these very specific warnings.
"I said we'll handle it. We were never able to get anyone placed inside - she has some very powerful rogue talents watching the gates. But we're not morons. We have some intelligence on her, her people, some of their operations. She's working out of here anyway. It started here. Like you said, she was our responsibility."
Jacob was willing to give him his rope… "She's their responsibility. But if you're confident you can de-escalate the situation while they finalize their plans - those are the guardrails. Think very hard about your approach, Mister Bear. Prepare. Consult your experts. Please. If you insist on moving forward, the continued existence of your legacy likely depends on the outcome of that meeting."
It's been some time since we've had a major house replaced.
But there's no rule that says tomorrow has to be like today…
Jacob looked at his watch. "I apologize to you all, I only now noticed the time. I really must be going. As a closing thought, you should feel relieved at this turn of events - outside pressure is off. Let the big boys have a turn at her… Life will be back to normal in no time."
He broke connection and switched off the displays.
Mister Bear's conversation won't work.
But might create the right circumstances for another…
Max was enjoying the drive. And dedicated Chloe time. It was empty out here, but had its own beauty. Blue sky. A few high clouds now. A blur of scrub on each side of the road, with the rare stand of trees around a ranch or house. She was relaxed. Comfy. Warm. Chloe was in rare form. It was always entertaining when she was super excited about something they were about to do. It's like everything about her sped up a little.
They'd alternated playlists back and forth, and even sang a few songs on the drive… They were gonna kill at karaoke night. If there was one. She'd check in with Sophie later. It had been her idea, but a good one.
It was a little after noon when they passed through Crystal Springs, about twenty minutes back. They transitioned from 93 onto 375. The Extraterrestrial Highway. Sadly, Max was the most extraterrestrial thing out here. Despite the years they'd lived in Vegas, it was the first time they'd driven it.
Chloe had taken her on plenty of drives for fun. Hard not to with that collection of cars and her skills behind the wheel. But she usually had a road in some exotic locale she wanted to try out. Dubai. Italy. Japan. Back to Italy. Max would take them there and back; Chloe would sort the middle bit. Usually at high speed. There were only two incidents where the police chases involved helicopters.
Chloe pointed to the layered cliffs in the distance, "Need to stop, doll? Stretch your legs? You could wander out through the sagebrush for a few hours?"
Ugh. Fucking sagebrush. Nature's obstacle. "Nope."
They passed another dead black cow on the side of the road. "Wow. What do you think, Max? Aliens? Drained their blood maybe?"
"Cars, prolly. Free range black cows at night on a dark desert road… Seems like a really bad idea. Poor things."
Max opened a water, held it up for Chloe to sip.
"Mrphm. Thanks. Maybe we should park a drone over each cow out here at night. Just sorta follow them around, lighting them up from above so people can see?"
"Faithful co-pilot duties. And I'm pretty sure that would scream 'alien abduction' to any drivers out here… Or was that the look you were going for?"
Chloe laughed as water dribbled down her shirt. "Hey! You missed my face hole." She leaned, gave Max's hand a kiss, swerved a little. "So, hey, uh, after lunch, how do you want to do this? I have faith in us and all, but I kinda doubt we'll make it through on the first try."
Max dabbed at her with a napkin. "I thought you did some advanced research or recon or something? Maybe marked the armypants dudes or mapped out a secret way through?"
"That's pretty much just cheating. I mean, we could have popped directly to the mountain entrance or whatever if we wanted easy. Besides, it's one thing to look at maps. It's another to talk to the locals. Human intelligence. They'll have the real dirt. That's the other part of our lunch mission."
"If there are any locals. But whatever. It's cool. If we run into trouble, I'll just jump back. Avoid all the things! I don't want to hurt anyone. I'm sure we'll get through. Eventually?"
"But if you jump, I won't remember any of it. I want the full Area 51 infiltration experience, Max."
"Making it difficult. You have another idea then?"
Chloe smiled. "I do..."
"...gonna tell me?"
"Oh. I thought I'd make it all pausey and dramatic and shit.'
"..."
Chloe flipped her hair. "Whatever. Fine. So if you use your rewind instead of a jump, you can bring me back a memory cube each time, right? Won't be perfect, but it'll be something. String the rewinds together, by the end, I should still have most of it? You'll be like…my DVR and Time-Sherpa!"
Max considered. "K. But if I do that, remember that I'll stay put and you'll be rewound however far back. I mean, I'll come find you, obvs."
"Like always then. If you vanish, I'll hang til you find me. Cool? Unless we're in the car, and then I'll keep driving." Chloe looked to Max, nodding.
"Cool. Just so we have a plan. Hey - any bets on how many tries?" Max leaned her head against the headrest, still facing Chloe. Bright sun caressing Chloe's skin… ahem.
"Trying to get out of paying what you owe me, Caulfield?" Chloe laughed. "Double or nothing on the seven bucks? I think I'll go with…three tries."
Max rolled her yes. "Yeah, right. It's Area 51, Chlo... I'm thinking twenty at least. To get all the way inside?"
"Oh - well if we're talking inside, and we're gonna be all super lame and shit, yeah. Sure. But are we counting each little hallway guard jump as a try, or is there a time limit? Like say, back five minutes or something to qualify?"
"Up to you. I was thinking twenty minute rewinds would count as a try, yeah?"
"Wow. Okay - and you're still saying twenty tries or more? Jesus dude. That's like an extra six hours of hardcore 'we suck' time. We're better than that…"
Max knew she had her. "That's not that much loop-time, Chloe. There's a reason I heart naps."
"Alright. You're on. I'll bump mine up to 4. Whoever's closest. But no intentionally getting caught to inflate your count for the win!"
Max said, "I'd never. I am an honorable wager participant. Besides, you'll have the cube to confirm after."
"Shake on it?"
Max took Chloe's hand in hers. Held it up to her face. Gave her fingertips soft kisses.
"Okay then… That…counts. Hey - quick semi-random question - how many naps do you rewind away every day, do you think?"
"Depends on the day. I almost always take at least one."
"Hmmm." After a moment, Chloe started laughing.
"What?"
"Sorry - fuckin' Hector, man. Just texted."
"What'd he say?"
"Clench."
"Insert probe joke here? Tell him I said hey." Max looked out over the highway, a straight grey-black line disappearing into low mountains in the distance. "This is a pretty cool road. It's like it could go on forever."
"I know. I'm almost tempted to keep driving. But I think our lunch is calling, and those little white buildings up there are where it's at."
"Already? Yay! Foods."
"Yep. There's the sign, dude. And a flying saucer on the back of a tow truck… Heaven. I'm so down for an Alien Burger and like a whole bucket of fries right now… Hungry?"
"Starving."
"Maybe a game of pool after?"
"Chloe, you can calculate perfect bank angles, and I have infinite retries and can manipulate reality. Pretty sure whoever breaks, wins."
"Good point. Maybe we run the locals instead, while we're pumping them for intel and stuff I mean…" Chloe slowed. "Huh. Check that, Max."
"What?"
Chloe pointed out to a road sign. "Proving my universe has a twisted sense of humor too…"
Max caught the large white town marker as they passed.
"…because…of course?" Max nodded.
In large black and red letters:
Welcome to Rachel.