Four Guinea Pigs

“What are you looking at, Bett?”

“The Earth.” I stepped beside her and looked out the window. There it was, a lifeless cinder just floating there in space. It was nothing like the old photos of what it had been when it was alive.

“Makes me sad to look at it,” I said, turning away and returning to the small table in the center of the staff cafeteria. “I don’t even know why they have that window there?”

“Maybe to remind us,” she said, heading in my direction. She sat across from me and leaned back in her chair. She put her hands in the pockets of her green, oversized coveralls. They were so big on her they looked a little funny, yet again, none of us had a pair that fit right.

“Look what we did to that. We’ll probably do it somewhere else too,” she said.

“Not we. I didn’t do anything to it.”

“You’re ancestors sure as hell did, and so did mine.”

“It wasn’t as if they had a choice.”

“That’s what you say.” She looked out the window again. “I think they had a lot of choices. It was just easier to ignore them. But you would think that if you had a choice of rebelling to save the whole world or just going about your sweet little day as usual, you would have the gonads to do something about it.”

“I don't know. That’s just the way we humans are.”

“Yeah. Stupid,” she said. She stood up and leaned toward me. “You humans are stupid.” She turned and headed to the door.

“What do you mean you?” I hollered.

“I’m not human anymore.”

“Yes you are,” I hollered as she exited the room. Trainer was coming in.

“What was that about? He asked. “Bett going off again.”

“Bett’s always going off. Now she’s not human.” He grinned. “Don’t even say it,” I said.

“Well. If the shoe fits…” He pulled up a chair and glanced out the window before sitting . “Oh. She was looking at that burned out cinder called Earth again. I don't know why we even have that window here. In fact, I don’t know why we are here.” He looked at me. “Why are we here?”

“I have no idea. I’m just a janitor.”

“No. You’re a technician...a highly skilled technician. Don’t try to pretend like you are part of the working class.”

“I work, don't I?”

“Yeah, but you are a professional who gets paid very well compared to them. Most of them would give a right arm to be in your place. Look at you now. Good food, clothing, cash going into your account so that when you go home you can do just about anything. They don’t give that to custodians.” I stood and took my tray to the conveyor belt. It was always moving. It just took the trays, plates, cups and saucers away into a back room back there and somehow they got cleaned. Probably had some robot back there, or slaves from another planet gagged so no one could hear them. I went and got another cup of coffee before sitting back down.

“I’m still not satisfied. We live in a sterile world. Too much technology. I feel like I'm part of a machine, not organic life.”

“Well, when we left that Earth our organic life story ended. Where will we ever find a planet where we can live without some type of technology. We humans really blew it.” I grinned.

“You humans did,” I said. “I’m not human.” He shook his head and grinned.

“You and that Bett are just as human as anybody else and your ancestors screwed up too, cursing us to live underground in shitty little planets or on space stations circling, but never living on the ground again, or breathing real air again.” He paused. “Except...there is a chance to change things, from what I’ve heard. It is called. “He leaned closer and lowered his voice, “dimension zero.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Be quiet!” He leaned in. “They’ve been trying to discover a way to go faster than light to get us to some planets that are in the sweet spot, like Earth. By mistake they have discovered a way to shift dimensions. We could possibly find an Earth where none of this has happened and settle there.”

“Are you serious?”

“Sure. It’s not ready yet. Probably won’t be for years, but...they’ve done experiments. All they need is a few guinea pigs to be explorers. I hear they are looking for people with high technical skills and a broad amount of general science knowledge.”

“Really,” I said. “And where do they hope to find somebody like that?” He took a drink of his coffee.

“I don’t know. They would have to be adventurous and brave because they would have to travel to many dimensions until they found one where a large population could settle. You know anyone like that?” I frowned. “It pays a lot too.”

“I might consider it depending on how much it pays.” I grinned. He started laughing. "Love the green backs, don't you?” He got up and headed to the conveyor belt. “Somebody will be in contact with you soon,” he said. “And this is really hush hush. We don’t want to give the people false hope, do we?”

“I must admit, you politicians have never given us false hope before, or any hope as a matter of fact.”

“I’ll take that as a joke, Jim. Soon.” He walked out the door. I was sitting there alone. Why was I the only one in the staff room? I was done with everything that’s why. I didn’t want to go back to my little box of a room, or the activity room. Why not sit right here and drink all of the coffee I could without being bothered?”

***

I transferred from my pod ship to the space station. This was a large, circular object like a hollowed out ball almost as big as a city inside. The whole thing rotated at a speed that created artificial gravity. It was odd because we were living inside, but on the outer edge of the ball while the middle was empty. It was large enough so the holographic projection of sky and white clouds seemed real, at least to those who had never lived on a planet. My watch kept blinking on emergency, even after we entered the space station.

I had been separated from my previous ship and out into a new sector for a few years. Why they had called me back to the station was a mystery. A small vehicle approached us at the docking station. I got in. Another person named De Santos was with me, one of my friends from Sector 7, my new sector located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. We climbed into the little cart and headed down a narrow passageway until we came out of the tunnel under a beautiful, artificial sky. The shift was so fast it almost made me gasp. De Santos elbowed me.

“Told you it would shake your world, didn’t I?’’ I was speechless. We kept rolling down a small roadway until we stopped in front of a small geodesic dome.

“Here we are,” The driver said. She smiled brightly and looked down at our watches blinking. “Good luck with the emergency. Must be something big...no luggage, not even an overnight bag.”

“Thanks for making me more nervous,” I said.

My pleasure,” She said, peeling off as soon as our feet hit the floor. We headed into the dome. On the door--Conference Room C. Only after we opened the door did the light stop flashing. There were a few men there who escorted us into the conference room. There was a long table there. As we entered I noticed a familiar face, Bett. That old devil. We were directed to have a seat near the end of the table. One of the high ups entered the room and took the seat at the head. De Santos and I sat on one side and Bett and another woman, who wore a Captain's uniform, sat on the other. A military Captain. I didn’t want anything to do with them.

The man at the end of the table had a dark disposition. He looked as though his face would crack if he smiled. He was very dark with very short hair and an impeccably trimmed mustache. He smiled brightly and his face didn’t crack. I couldn’t help but smile along with him. He stood and offered us his hand.

“Admiral Brant,” he said. I looked him over. He grinned. “No uniform, Intelligence.”

“Oh,” I said, “It’s not usual that you find…” I thought better of it. Bett shook her head. He looked at her and grinned.

“Seems you two are familiar with each other. That’s good.” He shook each of our hands. “Sorry for the cloak and dagger so to speak, but you have been chosen for a very top secret operation that might mean everything to the remnant of Earth that has been left behind. You are going to look for a new planet for us.”

“You mean the Dimensional thing?” I asked.

“Yes. It is now a reality. You four will be shifting dimensions and looking for a place where we can reclaim our old Earth and get a new start. It may be dangerous because we don’t know who, or what you’ll find. We aren't sure what will happen if you come face to face with yourselves in another dimension. We don’t know if your vibrations will be close enough to cancel each other out, or if that whole theory is a lot of nonsense from science fiction movies. We're really in the dark about this. I'm just honored that you four would volunteer for this. You'll be heroes no matter what the outcome and if you are successful, you will save the spirit and the soul of a whole people. We're not meant to live in space and according to the doctors it is taking a terrible toll on our bodies. If we don’t find a planet soon we don’t know what to expect. We may not even be human anymore.

“And tell us a little more about this process,” the Captain commented. Brant grinned. “Oh come on Briar. I thought you knew more about it than me.” She smiled.

“I worked on it early on, but sending a paper clip and retrieving it was a lot different than sending people through, especially four.” She paused for a moment, “Especially me! I don't know how you talked me into it.”

“The adventure,” Brant said. “I just knew you were an adventure junkie. He looked around the table, “as are all of these people, I take it. This is De Santos, a medical doctor, Dr. Bett, Botanist, And James Jensen is an environmental engineer.” Bett arched her brows, looked at me and grinned.

“Yeah I finally did it,” I said. “I don’t like engineers, but since I’ve been correcting their mistakes for so long I figured I might as well get paid for it.”

“He’s a leader in his technical field,” Brant said. “He was when we first considered him and better yet, now he’s an engineer. He will probably…”

“And who am I?” The Captain asked.

“Uk. I’m sorry. Captain Briar Kesick, Career Officer with a Phd. in Physics. Proud of that degree, aren’t you?” He grinned. She smiled.

“Damn right. I worked like hell for that degree.”

“The Captain will be in charge of your team,” Brant said.

She smiled. “Any questions?”

“Yes,” I said, “Why the military? Are we planning to take someone’s planet?” Bett shook her head and De Santos grinned.

“We are not planning to take anyone’s planet,” Kesick said, “Even though in an extreme case we may have to take part of a planet.” She shrugged.

“Hope that gave you a lot of information,” Bett said.

“Let’s not get started with this,” Brant said. “If we are dying and people are unreasonable and a planet is just about empty wouldn’t it make sense for us to find some uninhabited part and settle there? And then defend ourselves if we are attacked?”

“Yes it would, but we know the way Earth government works, don’t we?” I said.

“Well that Earth government doesn’t exist anymore,” Kesick said. “Do you realize there are less than 250,000 humans left on this side of the galaxy? We are dying in space and need to find some other home. The ones who aren’t dying are flying around and becoming involved with violent races killing, destroying, and enslaving. We need a place we can call home. Don’t you understand that?”

“Yes, but if we do the same things we did to destroy this new one what will all of that mean? That damn super nuke destroyed the whole planet. Do we have any more of those?”

“That would be classified,” Brant said. “In any event, you are not sent out as a conqueror, you are an explorer. If that doesn’t suit you…”

“It suits me. Who else will keep an eye on the military,” I asked glaring at Kesick.

“Not only that, Jensen. You’ve been drafted until this little venture is over. Welcome to the Space Force,” Brant said. The Captain began to grin. Bett laughed. “All of you have been drafted," Brant said. "You're in the Navy now, and that ends our briefing. The Captain can answer any more of your questions. He stood up and walked out.

"That bastard!" I said.

"Admiral Bastard to you," Kesick said. I didn't respond. "You have 24 hours to get your things together and tell your loved ones you're off for a six month mining op. And then we meet here and are off to other dimensions. We'll work on a buddy system. De Santos and Bett and Jensen and me.". She pushed her seat back. "You are dismissed" She stood up and walked out of the room, leaving us just standing there.

“Dismissed,” I said.

“Nobody told me I was joining the army,” De Santos said. “I wouldn’t have volunteered to do it if I knew that.”

“Suck it up, will you?” Bett said.

“I assure you that if I want to suck anything up it won’t be any of your affair,” he said.

“What happened to you Bett, you a spook too?” I asked.

“No. No. It’s just important. This is important and if we have to do it with the military, no problem. They aren’t the worst people in the universe you know.” She tapped the side of her ear. We looked around the room. Would they bug the room? Yes. I furrowed my brows.

“We’ll just have to see about that,” I said. “Why they teamed me up with that old Captain Meanie I have no idea.”

“Because you don’t know her. You know both of us.”

“And what does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you have an agenda.”

“What kind of agenda can I have? I could have stayed home.”

“You are a pain in the ass who is always complaining,” Bett said.

“Well...you are too.”

“Well that’s why we aren’t being paired together. Maybe they're afraid of some hanky panky.” I looked at her and grinned. “Yet again,” she said, “That’s nothing they have to worry about...with you.” My face dropped. De Santos smiled.

“Lucky you,” I said, turning to him. “At first I was disappointed not to be paired with her, but since there won’t be any hanky panky, what does it matter? In any case, Bett, how are you? You know I’ve missed you and the intellectual discussions like this we used to always have.”

“Now he’s having the same type of intellectual discussions with me,” De Santos said with a sneer. “I’m kind of glad to be missing them for a while.”

“You're always on some beautiful woman’s side, De Santos.”

“Thank you,” Bett said.

“I didn’t mean to say it in front of you.”

“Well it’s just good to know you’ve been saying that behind my back instead of other things.”

“We only have 24 hours to wrap things up,” De Santos said. I think we should be about our business. Maybe meet in the cantina at say 6. How does that sound? I’ve wrapped up most everything. I’m guessing we’ll be debriefed and sent to our permanent spaces sometime tomorrow. In the meantime...temp quarters are available on floor 7, I think.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I’m a doctor. I’ve been here before. We travel far and wide sometimes, remember?”

“Yes. It is hard to forget sometimes,” I said with a sneer.

“In any case, he’s right. I already have my room booked and am headed up. I'll see you around 6 in the cantina. In the meantime, I need some personal down time.”

“Ok, Bett. I hope I haven’t offended you in any way. I often do.”

“Not yet, Jensen.” She looked at De Santos. "It's wonderful to meet you, De Santos.”

“Likewise.” She turned and left the room. De Santos and I were there alone.

“Why are we always the last ones to leave the room?” I asked. He shrugged.

“When there are drinks I can understand, but I just can’t get it, in this case.” We headed out.

***

I went and made a few phone calls. I really didn’t have to get ready to leave since most of my life involved traveling far and widely. This was just another trip with a lie about where I would be going. The military thing still upset me. People giving me orders pissed me off. Especially that captain. I wondered why.

I checked into a little box that was supposed to be temp quarters. It seemed more like a prison cell than a room. Bett and De Santos were on the same floor and to my surprise Captain Meanie came walking down the hall and to the room right next to mine. I walked over and knocked on the door. She was taking a few things out of an overnight bag and putting them away. She looked up and smiled.

“Come to see what the enemy is doing Jensen? Come on in. Have a seat on the bed. I promise you’ll be safe.” She laughed to herself. I took a seat.

“So Kesick, or should I call you Captain Kesick? How did you get dragged into this?”

“I would say kicking and screaming,” she said. She closed the door and sat beside me on the bed. “When you are in the military you have to do some really lame things. You don’t think they will help, but you have to go along anyway. You understand?”

“Sure do. How long have you been in?”

“Too long. Almost 17 years.”

“You must have entered very young.” She smiled.

“Yes, I did. I was a troubled youth. This was a way for my parents to train me in the ways of whatever culture they considered themselves part of. How about you? Why didn’t you ever join?”

“I don’t know. I never took it seriously, I guess. I must admit that I have always had a little bit of anger deep inside about the way the whole earth got destroyed and how it could have been avoided. We talk a lot and pretend, but I really don’t know who is in charge.” She moved a little closer.

“Maybe you’ll find out, Jensen. But when you do, if you do, there is no going back.” She leaned closer and kissed me. I looked at her, astonished. She grinned. “You can report me if you want, but I know you won’t. That’s why we’re paired up.” She stood up and straightened some of the things in the drawer. She pulled out a small cask of whiskey. She turned toward me, leaned back against the small desk and began to unscrew the top. “Am I right, Jensen?” She took a swig and extended the bottle to me. I reached out and took it.

“I guess you are,” I said. She smiled pleasantly. “Tonight then, after your meeting we will meet to iron things out.”

“Sure. I would love to iron things out with you.”

“Good.”

“How’d you know about the meeting?” She tilted her head slightly. “The room was bugged?”

“Everything is bugged around here. You know that.”

“Even this?” I asked, quite alarmed.

“Some of the more top secret places are damped so no one can hear anything. Don’t worry. I’m not trying to get you in trouble. I’m just trying to be real nice, if you know what I mean. So later this evening. Thanks for coming by. I stood up and left the room in a quandary. What the hell was she up to?”

Kesick’s comm badge beeped as soon as he left. “Is he ready?” Brant asked.

“He will be by tomorrow,” she responded.

***

We met in a small cafeteria off of the real cafeteria where we could talk in private. I went to the wine dispenser and got a glass. I looked over my shoulder. “Anybody else want anything?” They both lifted their glasses already filled. I walked over and took a seat.

“So. How are we on our last night before...who knows what?” I asked.

“We’re good,” Bett said. “How about you? Where’s your partner, the Captain?” She grinned. De Santos did too.”

‘I have a feeling she wants to keep an eye on you,” De Santos said.

“Same type of problem I’ve had all my life,” I answered.

“I think it's because you talk too much. You just don’t seem to have any type of wall or boundary between your mouth and your brain. You shouldn't say everything you think,” Bett said. I raised my glass.

“Amen to that. I think I better develop that skill.”

“Me too, De Santos said. “And I mean I need to be quiet sometimes too. We're going to be in places that are bugged, let’s say it straight out, so we need to be careful about what we say and where we say it. That is the freedom we're fighting for?”

“Well they will only listen to the tapes if we're under some type of investigation,” Bett said. “That’s what they say anyway.”

“And who determines what ‘under investigation’ means?" I asked. “This may be the last night we're alive. You'd think we could just unwind and have a good time.”

“We can,” Bett said. “Go for it.”

“To change the subject, where’s the Captain?” De Santos asked.

“She’s back in her little room. I was surprised to see that she's on our wing. Right next door to me. I’m supposed to meet her later to debrief, as they call it. The military has a lot of cute little sayings.”

“Yes. They do,” Bett said. “Seems you're not enamored with the military. I don’t blame you, but I don't hate them.”

“I don't hate them either. I'm just weary of them and what they’ll do next. Yet again, I feel the same about the scientists.”

“I happen to be a scientist,” Bett said.

“Yeah.” I responded. She grinned and shook her head and said, “Poor Jensen, so paranoid about everything, even life.” De Santos laughed.

“She really knows you well doesn’t she, Jim?”

“A little too well,” I said.

“Well let’s forget about him, '' De Santos said, and have a bit of R and R partner. He held up his wine glass and he and Bett clinked their glasses. I took another sip. It was pretty strong.

“You notice anything about this wine? It really seems strong?” I said.

“Seems the same to me,” De Santos said.

“Me too,” Bett added. We continued to drink and talk about the old days, until I started to fade. I left early and headed back to my room. Bett and De Santos just sat there looking at each other.

As I was walking past the Captain’s door I decided to go in, knowing she was expecting me, but I wasn’t ready for anything. I almost felt drugged. I knocked on the door and she opened it. She was barely dressed.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I guess I’m too late. I’m a little…”

“Drunk,” she finished.

“Yes, but I only had one or two glasses of wine. I think something is wrong with the dispenser.”

“Come on in,” she said, stepping to the side of the door. I walked in.

“I’m sorry. I…"

She pushed me down onto the bed. “You will do as you are.” She began to passionately kiss me. I hadn’t expected that. I had hoped for it, but I hadn’t expected it, and then, I guess I blacked out. I woke up a few hours later next to her in bed. My wrist was hurting like crazy. I looked down at it and saw a bruise. It was just a little bruise. What the heck was that? I looked back at her and kissed her. She woke up and smiled.

“Satisfied?” She asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Well let’s do it again.” I looked at my wrist. “Sorry for pushing you down, your arm hit the side of the bed.”

“I can barely remember it.”

“Really? I made that much of an impact? Well let’s see if you remember this time.”

***

The morning came fast...with bells. I had left the Captains bed and had gone back to my room. I felt a lot better in many ways. We all gathered together in Conference Room C again to debrief. There we received shots...vaccinations against any possible threats as well as a small chip embedded under the skin. They explained what they were doing.

According to the latest science many dimensions existed close to each other except at a different frequency or vibration. They gave us instruments about the size of large watches that could actually interact with the physiology of our bodies to change the vibrations of our bodies. This, along with entanglement theory would cause us to leap from one existence to the other. By locking onto particles in other dimensions, attuning our bodies to them with the watch and through the small implant, we would naturally move from one place, our present reality, to another faster than the speed of light. It would almost be instantaneous. The implant would actually release a substance that prevented us from experiencing the shock of the jump mentally.

We would actually black out a few moments and then wake up after we arrived at our new destinations. We were given our watches, took our shots, and were given quantum communication devices that were supposed to be able to communicate based on the theory of entanglement too. They would be tuned to our frequency as we jumped from place to place using the trace. The Trace was what the called the trail left over for milliseconds as we leapt from one dimension to the next.

As an engineer I found this fascinating. I had no idea how they had developed all of this stuff. Kesick knew a little bit more about the theory behind it and De Santos about the biology, so we had a good team. To get a better shot at making it to the right place in the other dimension, we would go down to the Earth and use it as a point of departure. Of course it was completely toxic so we had to take a needle down to a designated spot and then leave from there. We chose where the Grand Canyon was.

We slowly loaded up and headed for the needle, a small, narrow ship resembling a spike. Kesick looked at me, moved closer and gave me a wink. “Things will work out,” she whispered. “I promise.”

“I’m glad you're so sure,” I said. “This seems very complicated.”

“More than it is.” We went into the needle and strapped it. Soon we were launched toward the burned out Earth. We entered the atmosphere without mishap and headed toward the planet. The atmosphere was toxic and thin...so thin it was difficult to slow the craft down. Had it not been for very powerful retros it would have been impossible. We did, however, eventually land in the bottom of the cannon. As we looked out the window all we saw was stone.

No vegetation, no water, no living beings, just rocks and sand. Perhaps there were some microorganisms of something still there, but we couldn’t pick them up. We all coordinated our devices and connected them so that where one went we all went. Even if one of us, God forbid, got killed, that dead body would still be with us. We checked our com-links and then entered into two small compartments two by two.

I sat there facing Kesick. She gave me a wink. “Good to see you like this again,” She whispered. I nodded and smiled.

“I hope it won’t be the last time,” I said.

“Not at all.” The countdown began. We leaned back in our seats not knowing what to expect. There was a flash of light. We found ourselves lying knocked out, on the desert floor. But it was beautiful.

“The sky was bright blue. White clouds hung there almost motionless as a strong wind blew. The ground was sand, but nearby we could see some scrub brush, cactuses, heaty trees in the distance, and we could hear a river running close by. The air was real. It wasn't artificial. The feeling of being on Earth was exhilarating. Something about it just said "Home.” I wondered if we had found the right place.

Soon we were disturbed by crowds of hikers and children visiting the Grand Canyon. The river was roaring as we heard a raft of people coming down and shooting the rapids. I had never seen so much water in my life. I sat up and looked at Kesick. She opened her eyes and looked around. Bett and De Santos were nowhere in sight.

“Where are Bett and De Santos?'' I asked, getting to my feet and brushing myself off.

“I guess we got separated. That’s why we go two by two. They are close by, I’m sure.” She got up and brushed herself off. “Let’s see if we can find them." As we walked by people looked at us strangely. We were in black suits with watches on that looked almost like what would have been scuba diving suits when Earth was young. Since we were near the water I guess they just thought of them as wetsuits or something.

We walked for almost ½ of a mile when we ran into De Santos and Bett headed in our direction. They grinned. “Thought you guys didn’t make it,” De Santos said. “Thank God you’re OK.”

“A little overwhelmed, but OK,” Kesick said. “I had seen pictures of a healthy Earth, but never expected it to be like this.”

“Me either,” I added. “So...what's our first step?”

“Get the communication devices up and running.” That was my job. After a few adjustments we were on line and I reported where we were and that we were all in good shape. I turned on the tracker so they could follow us. Within moments we were surrounded by a group of people in khaki uniforms carrying firearms. This, we hadn’t expected.”

We were approached and surrounded. A husky man stepped forward. “Excuse me. This part of the park is sealed off. Who are you? Show me some ID.”

“I don’t have any with me,” I said. “We came out of the water.”

“None of you have ID?”

“No.”

“Where is your raft? You must have it in your raft. How can you rent a raft without ID?”

“We left it in the car,” Bett said.

“What kind of car are you driving?”

“We don’t know,” I said. “We rented it.”

“From where?”

“Hertz,” De Santos said.

He lifted his radio and spoke into it. “Please come with us,” he said. They surrounded us. No one drew a weapon, but they had their hands on them. We were loaded into the back of a large truck and then we headed out into the desert. We came to a camp made up of several sand colored tents and women and men buzzing around like busied bees. We were escorted into a tent where we were brought before Corporal Janice Marrion.

Corporal Marrion was a woman about average height and build. She had very dark skin with just a touch of lipstick. Her hair was in long braids somehow tucked under her cap. She looked us over closely. She gestured toward some folding chairs. We sat. She sat across from us.

“Who are you?” She asked bluntly.

“I’m Captain Kessick,” the Captain said. “I come from a remnant of Earthlings in another dimension. We are looking for a possible place to settle.” Marrion grinned.

“I am quite serious,” the Captain said. “We became highly advanced. We began to make journeys out into space and to connect with other humanoid races. We started trading technology, artifacts, and the other things that made us, as a species, very unique. We found that our restlessness made us very unique because it made us more creative than most beings. We could take something the others had for centuries, reconfigure it and make it work better...way better. When we were given a weapon that would protect the planet we, unfortunately, thought of it as an energy source and began to try to make it better. We did and we ended up destroying our whole planet.”

We, a team of four, are traveling from dimension to dimension to find an Earth that is empty where those problems never occurred.”

“I would have you locked up for such a stupid story Captain, if it hadn’t been for...I hesitate to even say anything, but we have had several time anomalies occurring in this area. We actually think that time travelers have been visiting us for some reason and we want to know why.”

“Time travelers? Is that possible?” I asked Kesick.

“If we can jump dimensions it’s close enough, I would say." Marrion set back and crossed her arms.

“So you are not these time travelers? You are dimension jumpers.” She shook her head. “This sounds ridiculous. Why now?”

“Because you're at the very early stages of imagining the weapon that will end up destroying the planet and the atmosphere,” Kesick said.

“Really?" I said. “I didn’t know anything about this.”

“This has to be stopped,” She continued. “If we can stop it at the source, we can stop it altogether. We’ve had some experience with time travel. In our history tapes we found that one of our people saved the life of a random person. That person was the great, great grandparent of the scientist obsessed with sowing fear and creating that weapon. It took a long time, but we found the time traveler who saved that person and the person. It took so long.” She looked at me.

“What are you looking at me for?” I asked. “I’m not a time traveler.” I looked at Bett and De Santos. They were silent. “What? Are you trying to say we’ve travelled through time? That's impossible.”

“Not impossible. Problem is we only learned too late. Now we can correct the problem before it starts. You saved a person who was supposed to die.”

“Well, I won’t save anybody. It’s that simple.”

“I don’t think any of you will be saving anybody. Guards, the Colonel said, calling them over. Lock these people up good and tight.” The Captain reached down and tapped her watch. We found ourselves standing on another planet. I looked down. It was the same one, except it was evening and we were looking down from the top of a hill. I reached down to tap my watch.

“I’m going to open up communications and get some instruction. I don’t like the fact that…” The captain hit a switch and a small charge in my right wrist exploded. I fell to the ground in severe pain. I lay there as we watched a low flying plane pass. A person jumped out wearing a backpack, but no parachute. He hit a button and exploded right above the camp, flattening every tent.

“Now we can go,” she said. She tapped the watch again and we appeared back in the needle. My wrist was not hurt, I was OK. I was sitting in the small booth next to the captain as if we had never left. Outside there was sunshine and the sound of birds singing. I could see the trees, heavy vegetation swaying in the breeze. A man came in who I had never seen.

Mission accomplished Kesick,” he said. “I know you may not recognize me, but things have changed. You have proven that we can change a timeline. This may be more dangerous than what we just destroyed. The knowledge has to be buried, Captain. Kept secret at the highest level."

“I agree, Sir, even though I have no idea who you are.” He grinned.

“You have to readjust, Kesick. This isn’t the world you left, or you,” he said, turning to the rest of us. “Take your time. We debrief in…” he looked at his watch...30 minutes. Welcome back, team. I hope this won’t be your last journey."

I looked at the Captain, Bett, and De Santos. “Thank God you didn’t hit that button this time,” De Santos said. “We’ve been going around doing this over and over again until finally Kesick had the idea to go right to the source. You.”

“Me?”

"Yes. We kept finding in the records where a call came from you about what was happening. You got some bad information that told you that you were supposed to save the Colonel before the attack. We said, how the heck did he get back there? We couldn’t understand how or when that might happen, so we decided that we would take you back there and set the whole thing up instead of just helplessly waiting."

We’d drug you the night before, implant an explosive in your wrist that would disable your communication device and ability to call in, and just let nature take its course."

“We found out that our own travel had caused the tragedy,” Bett said, “So we decided that we would find a way to predict how and when you somehow traveled back there and use it for our benefit, and it worked.”

“So was the Colonel the problem?”

“No. The project she started after her encounter with us was the problem. They actually started working on a real time bomb that could throw the population of a planet back to the stone age. When they got information from the Extraterrestrials and the schematic for the energy production they needed, they began to experiment with time and jumped the Earth all the way back to a time before life had developed on it by mistake. This was the only way to get it back, and we did it.”

“Thank God this is finally over,” De Santos said.

“For some,” Kesick said. “Your term of duty isn’t over yet though. All of you are still in the Navy, including you Jensen, so toughen up and be prepared for your next assignment.” She stood up and walked out the door. I glared at Brett and De Santos. They were traitors and spies all these years, but what could I really say? They had saved the Earth. I still glared at them, stood, and marched out to the debriefing station. I didn’t know where it was, but I was sure that some military moron would lead me to it one way or the other.

The End.