Fractured Futures Read online

  The professor had constructed the lab under his home, deep in the ground. He led her down the steps, and what she saw in the next hour had her jaw hanging open in absolute amazement.

  The time gate was no “gate” at all. The device itself mimicked a large orb made of some kind of clear polymer. Two metal rails outfitted with electronics and flashing colored lights stood on each side of the orb. One of the rails held a control panel and emitted an electromagnetic field between the two rails that interfaced with the sphere to manipulate space/time.

  Ronan didn’t understand all of the technology used to operate the mechanism, but the tactile control console looked easy enough. Commands punched into a board on one of the rails set the destination, time, and date. The second console recorded return information.

  The rails were two opposing pillars approximately six feet high and four feet long in total, although the professor thoughtfully fixed the control console at waist height. The dimensional portal locked on to anything within the orb’s transmission range and sent it off in the wink of an eye.

  Because the machine locked onto the matter signature of the last object transported through the gate, it was unnecessary to have a corresponding gate at the destination. All one required was a crystal that fit into the palm of the hand to activate the gate from wherever they had journeyed in time.

  The ruby red crystal was octagonal, 1.27 millimeters thick. It had a dial in the center, which protruded slightly to ensure proper manipulation. One had to twist it counterclockwise and then press it to activate.

  They sent a probe through to one hundred and fifty years in the past with a set time of twenty minutes. The probe was holographic and therefore made of transparent material, undetectable to the technology of the time destination. Professor Horton placed a homing beacon on the probe since the device was incapable of activating a return crystal as a human being could. In that manner, the time machine could lock onto the probe remotely.

  When they retrieved the probe, Doctor Horton played back the images recorded into its database and Ronan was amazed that it actually worked. She watched as people walked through the Metroplex wearing dated clothing. She saw newspapers with ancient headlines that convinced her that the probe’s recording was authentic. Her sharp eye for detail noticed there were few homeless and most looked clean, well fed, and happy.

  The sky didn’t look dirty and overcast as it did much of the time in Germany. Ronan wondered if that was just indicative of the location the probe had traveled to, or if they’d polluted their atmosphere so much since then that it had changed their climate.

  Then they sent the probe forty years into the future and she waited anxiously for its return. Ronan wasn’t sure she wanted to see how much worse things could get. It seemed like Mother Nature was already pretty pissed at them for whatever reason. Ronan feared where humanity might end up.

  With the tool finally retrieved, she felt rewarded in her misgivings by what she saw. The image revealed a much older version of herself sitting on the porch of an urban home. She glared at everyone. Ronan was surprised at the bitterness in her countenance. The invisible probe followed when Ronan got up and hobbled into her domicile.

  She could see that the dwelling resembled a shrine to the past. Pictures of Sidney Weaver covered nearly all of the available wall space, and when her ancient self gazed upon the faces that stared back at her, Ronan could see the first signs of humanity on the ancient visage.

  The lined face relaxed and a melancholy smile graced the full lips. The older version of Ronan reached out with trembling, arthritic fingers and touched the frozen image. She knew with conviction that she was staring at what her future would become if she couldn’t deal with the obsession that was just beginning.

  “We will be ready for the next phase soon,” Horton said.

  His soft voice broke through the haze in her mind. He didn’t seem to notice the identity of the subject in the recording, caring only that it worked. At least she hoped that he hadn’t noticed, but perhaps he simply chose not to point it out. In any case, Ronan was relieved.

  “Next phase?”

  She was shocked at the husky tone of her voice. What she had just seen left her greatly shaken. She certainly didn’t think she was above normal human failings, but she didn’t really consider herself moody or just plain nasty. However, she supposed in a way she should be grateful for this glimpse of the future. Now she could make sure she didn’t travel down the pathway to bitterness.

  “Well, it may be a while, but eventually a person will have to go through to test the return properties of the crystal. First, there will have to be many more tests. We must be sure that there are no side effects so we should send through smaller life forms for the initial testing, perhaps a few rodents?”

  By concentrating on Professor Horton, she was able to forget her potential wickedness and began to feel excitement for a new adventure. While someone could use the project for evil, it also promised wonderful rewards if they were willing to take the chance. Maybe they could even do this without messing with the environment the second time around.

  Ronan was suddenly excited and she interrupted. “Why not now?”

  “My dear.” The old man was shocked. “That would be extremely dangerous. Anything could happen. The machinery could break down, the subject could develop some rare disease, or worst of all they might meet themselves at their destination if the timing is not set correctly.”

  She didn’t follow the significance of such an occurrence. So what? Then she could tell her other self that she was destined to be a mean old biddy if she didn’t stop holding on to her emotions so tightly.

  “What would be so terrible about that?”

  “They would cancel each other out,” he answered as though she should have known. “It would be like matter and anti-matter: they could not exist at the same time. Although I imagine the resulting explosion would be quite impressive.”

  They discussed possible paradoxes for a considerable amount of time before the professor took the time to give her a crash course in how to operate the machinery in his absence. It was well after midnight before she left his residence.

  “Before I forget to mention this at another time,” he said as they parted company at the front door, “I have programmed a safety protocol into the machine that will prevent a person from traveling to a specific location where they already exist. Should anyone attempt to do such a thing, they will simply return to the gate room.”

  “That seems like a wise precaution. At least it will keep them from exploding.”

  “Precisely,” he grinned and held up a finger.

  She smiled and turned to go.

  THE SHADOWS OF night effectively hid the operative assigned to see what the old man was doing. The Regime wasn’t necessarily worried about him. He had been a loyal citizen to date, and his discoveries greatly increased their power. Still, prudence prevented carelessness and it looked as though their attention to detail was about to pay off. If this new technology fell into the hands of the disgruntled public, it could greatly undermine their authority. That wasn’t something with which the present government was prepared to gamble.

  Additionally, they’d allowed Detective Lee to profit from the patents placed on the technologies she funded, but this new device would never see implementation. His orders were to terminate the inventor. If an extremist idealist got hold of it, the Regime might end before it ever began, and that was unacceptable.

  He waited until the lights from the motorcycle disappeared into the night and the engine could no longer be heard before he pried open a basement window and slipped quietly inside. The time machine was clearly visible as the most current project and took up the center of the huge room. Shelves of equipment and testing devices lined two walls, but the space was neat and well ordered, quite unlike the scientist who worked here.

  Professor Horton had gone upstairs and the intruder could hear only an occasional bump as he moved around. With any luck, the
old man would be in bed very soon and he could complete the assignment. At this late hour, his thoughts centered on a large pepperoni pizza and a six-pack as a reward once he completed the assignment.

  Unfortunately, his employers didn’t authorize destruction of the time machine. The Regime could keep the true nature of its existence secret in the past and use it for its own purposes, perhaps to begin the current regime during the Victorian era instead of waiting until originally begun in the 21st century. The possibilities were endless and proved why those more intelligent than he made the decisions. He was just a hired gun and not known for his creative thought processes.

  Soon silence reigned throughout the house and the assassin made his move. His eyes had long-since adjusted to the darkness and he could see clearly walking up the stairs and into the main house. While Detective Lee and the professor were busy, he’d scouted the house. He knew the layout well enough to navigate to the master bedroom in the gloom.

  A lump lay beneath the covers, illuminated by the moonlight streaming in through the window, and he could hear the professor snoring lightly in his sleep. The killer looked down as he fished a radon blast pistol out of his deep pocket and fitted a silencer to the end. When he looked back up his black knit mask had ridden up under his eyes and he had to adjust it before he could aim the weapon at the intended victim.

  He fired two shots into the man as he slept, the pistol making only a loud hiss through the silencer. He separated the silencer from the weapon and placed both back into the jacket pockets. Purpose served, the mask came off and joined the blaster. The scientist had not wakened and no one had seen him while he carried out his mission.

  The overcoat and gloves he kept on, their appearance easily explained by the cold weather outside. The black mask would have definitely caught the attention of anyone who happened to walk by at this late hour as he left the house. He certainly couldn’t afford an interrogation from a curious police officer. Unfortunately, personal cloaking shields didn’t function well in extreme temperatures.

  With everything in order, he calmly prepared to leave the old man’s house. He took the keys from a peg by the front door and locked up. He’d give the keys to his superiors who would see to the eventual placement of the time machine.

  Chapter Two

  THE ANNOYINGLY PERSISTENT buzz of the alarm combined with the almost constant chime of an incoming communications signal finally roused Ronan from a near-comatose sleep. She pushed herself out of bed with a groan and stumbled with half-closed eyes toward the computer display. She had been with the professor until shortly after midnight and hadn’t gotten to bed until almost one. A quick glance out the bedroom window told her that dawn had barely begun to break.

  “This better be good. Activate,” she snapped at the computer interface in irritation, but was completely awake a moment later when the image of her commander popped onto the view screen. Since she was on personal leave, his was the one face she hadn’t expected to see.

  “Sir?”

  “Sorry to bother you off duty, Detective Lee, but I thought you should hear it from me rather than on the morning news.”

  Sloan’s voice and the compassion in his eyes indicated that the news was not good and Ronan unconsciously braced herself for the worst.

  “What is it?”

  His eyes darted about for a moment as he clearly searched for a way to say the words. Then he met her gaze squarely. “I guess the only way to say it, is to just say it. Professor Horton is dead.” Seeing the shock on her face, he added, “We believe that his research in time travel was seen as a potential threat and the Regime did what was necessary to ensure its survival.”

  Ronan started to ask how the government knew about the old man’s research, and then remembered that he had never kept any of his research a secret. Since the professor was a loyalist, the Regime had always benefited from his discoveries. She looked up and realized that Lieutenant Sloan considered the actions of the government perfectly justified. Although sympathetic to her loss, he was a good soldier and fully supported whatever decisions his government thought necessary. Whether it was the murder of a single harmless old man or the genocide of an entire race, it made no difference to him.

  His assumption that Ronan also shared his views that the ends justified the means couldn’t have been more off the mark, but she knew better than to voice those differences. Her belief that the poor treatment of commoners by the hierarchy was wrong and had been growing for some time. It had taken the discovery of the details of

  Sidney Weaver’s death, and now the murder of Professor Horton, to push her over the edge.

  She choked back her rage and an immediate outburst in the interests of self-preservation. For long moments, she struggled not to scream at Sloan, to accuse him of monstrous loyalties to a seditious government. Finally, she forced herself to share platitudes about the unfortunate but necessary death of her oldest friend before she ended the communication.

  Ronan stared dejectedly at her bare feet for several minutes as she grieved the loss. Tears ran down her cheeks, plopping onto the tile and her toes. Grief eventually turned back to anger and as she contemplated the world in which she lived, where life was meaningless in the pursuit of government supremacy, anger turned to fury.

  Ronan vowed she wouldn’t allow this anymore. With Professor Horton’s discovery came the means to undo the atrocities that had become a way of life in the 24th century. All she had to do was get there first. Ronan deduced the exact timeframe when all of this had started on a downhill spiral of violated civil rights and government-condoned murder.

  The recent case and the research into Sidney Weaver’s death had uncovered that although a stalker had killed her, that had by no means been the end of the repercussions. Ronan now believed that if she could prevent the death of this woman she could undo all of this and Professor Horton would still live.

  She worried someone had discovered the lab and destroyed it. Her heart lurched in her chest. She had to ensure that it hadn’t been. She dressed quickly and was just about to leave the apartment when the computer chimed with a Priority One incoming message. Ronan frowned as she wondered what else the lieutenant had to say and turned back in aggravation, but the call was not from the Unit. The transmission was darkly shadowed and blurry around the edges, as though someone had deliberately distorted the image. The person on the screen remained effectively hidden, the voice altered for the sake of anonymity.

  “Do not speak. Listen. Professor Horton was killed by the Regime not to prevent the research falling into the hands of resisters, but so that they could control it.”

  “Why would they do that and how do you know that he’s dead? It hasn’t even been on the news yet.” She interrupted in spite of the warning, even though that same idea had already occurred to her. The caller went on as though she hadn’t spoken.

  “The Konservatives knew they would have difficulty controlling the Professor since he would want to share his discovery with the world. However, if they could utilize the technology for their own purposes, they would have access to go backward or forward to change anything they wanted. It would ensure their total power for eternity. You must be very careful. The Regime is not what it appears to be.”

  “What is it?”

  She had already discovered over the past year that the Regime secretly continued to annihilate anyone who disagreed or resisted. Not on the scale of genocide during the Second World War, but clandestinely to avoid outraging the entire world. If she had known this from the start, Ronan would not have joined the Regime’s Detective force, but would have done everything possible to undermine them. The dark image shifted nervously on the screen and she wondered if the caller would speak again or simply end the transmission.

  “You’ll find out.”

  “Who are you?” she pressed.

  The transmission terminated abruptly, leaving Ronan with more questions than answers. Unfortunately now was not the time to pursue them. With Professor Horton d
ead, the Regime would not hesitate to use his house as their own base of operations to work on the time machine. She had to get there first.

  Ronan pulled her long hair back into a ponytail and grabbed her helmet before she rushed out of the apartment. She drove her motorcycle quickly to the Professor’s home, cycled around the block once to ensure no one followed her or lay in wait. Even though the roar of the machine would obviously give her away, self-preservation was still a powerful instinct.

  She parked the powerful bike out of sight behind a row of hedges and looked at the front of the house much as she had the night before. However, the night before the residence had merely looked pathetic in its disrepair. Today it looked threatening. Ronan knew she felt that way because of what had happened after she left last night.

  Like the rest of the house, the front door and jamb were not new. A large gap showed around the door, at least an inch wide, and Ronan could see the edge of the latch bolt where the lock shot through. A credit card worked as a loid and she easily jimmied the door open. After looking around to ensure no one watched her, she went inside. Ronan rushed past the entryway of archaic killing tools and headed for the lab. It didn’t appear that anyone had been there. Everything looked the same as it had. Obviously, there was no hurry to take over since the original occupant was out of the way. The Regime would know Ronan funded this project but since they considered her a loyalist, they wouldn’t expect any resistance from her.

  She stared at the rails and the transparent sphere, struck again by the anonymous tip she'd received before leaving the apartment.

  There was no doubt in her mind that the government had been responsible for the current situation and that their intentions for the time machine were not benevolent.

  She nodded to herself as she began to formulate a plan. She would take steps to ensure that such a totalitarian government never came to power, and at the same time prevent the death of an incredible woman who had made such an impression on her. Her evidence was thin but the ex-husband had too many friends connected to the Regime’s infancy, and the timing of Weaver’s demise was too much of a coincidence. Regardless what happened when she arrived at her destination, saving Sidney Weaver was the priority. The woman was the key to all of this. If her motives weren’t completely selfless, she found comfort in the fact that her intentions were good and that she was only human.