Chapter 4
5 Jul 2068
John was sitting on his porch steps sipping a tall glass of lemonade and watching his neighbor's lawn mower traverse around its yard in a preset pattern. He had somehow committed the track to memory over time. He swirled his glass, clattering the cubes of ice as he thought about yesterday’s abysmal meeting with the dean. After more than fifteen years, the TIA still haunted him.
Tenure offered both not only financial and academic security but access to more research funding. Getting tenure had become a blood sport at top-class universities. It could be intensely competitive and brutal and the University of Michigan, obviously, was no exception.
The phone on the porch table activated. He got to it on the third tone. "Hello. John Mackinac," he said.
"Dr. Mackinac, this is Jenny Scott. Agent Wultz and I paid you a visit in '52 regarding the TIA. Do you remember?"
"Agent Scott, unfortunately it has been impossible to forget the TIA as well as you and agent Wultz. How have you been?"
"Let's just say there has been a lot of water under the bridge," she replied. "Agent Wultz is still with the FBI, but I'm now with The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. It's a combat support team for the DOD. We report indirectly to and support the Secretary of Defense as well as the Director of National Intelligence."
Letting that sink in, John asked, "So, how can I help you? Please don't tell me it's about the TIA."
"Unfortunately, Dr. Mackinac," she said, "it is. Can I visit you next week? I'd like to talk with you in person."
"Sure, it's summer break and I was just catching up on a couple of proposals," he said. "What day is good for you?"
"Monday's good."
"Monday it is; about ten o'clock? And after all these years, you can call me John. Still remember how to get here."
"Yes, I remember, Dr. Mackinac. See you Monday about ten." She hung up.
He crunched an ice-cube as he said aloud to the neighbor's mower swinging around a bed of spring marigolds in full bloom, "What the hell is the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency?"
The mower broke from its program and quickly headed for its back yard.
The doorbell chimed as John had just finished clearing at least a week's worth of dishes from his kitchen sink.
"Agent Scott, still chasing time travelers, I take it?" he said as he opened the porch door.
"Something like that," she smiled, entering his home, "and it's just Jenny now."
He saw her glance at the picture of his wife and daughter, still in the same place on the mantle.
Jenny Scott had not changed much; her hair was now shorter, as was the style these days, and she didn't look like such a young kid anymore.
A huge grey tabby jumped on the back of the couch to get closer to the newcomer. Purring loudly the cat was obviously trying to get attention from her. "Don't mind Angstrom. He's usually not this happy to see strangers," John said wondering what had got to into the cat.
"He's enormous. Genetically altered?" Jenny asked, rubbing behind and between the cat's ears.
"No, he's a Maine Coon. It's a big breed," John explained as he picked up a golf ball from a dish on the mantle and tossed it into the porch making a clatter. "Fetch!" he said as the large cat jumped down and ambled after it.
"New ink?" Jenny asked as he tossed the golf ball. "I didn't notice it last time. Do they have a meaning?"
John rolled down his sleeves. The marks on his left forearm were not a tattoo, but there from birth, so said his foster mother. There were three overlapping chevrons, the center one deepest. Or it could have been tallest. John really did not know which way was up to the form. He had called them his mountains ever since he could remember so he had taken them to be upside down, as he looked at them. But he knew the marks were a mystery that had been literally at arm's distance all his life.
"Old ink, very old," he replied. "They're my mountains."
Jenny giggled. "Perfect and ironic for a geologist." Passing her thin briefcase to her left hand, she shook John's hand and said, "Thanks for making time to see me."
"Just a conscientious taxpayer," John said flatly. "Can I get you anything?"
Angstrom raced around the corner, bounded up to John and dropped the golf ball at his feet. "Good boy," John said with a sigh.
Looking at Angstrom, Jenny said, "I'm fine, thanks. Perhaps we should walk. I wouldn't mind seeing more of the campus."
Outside, as they reached the sidewalk, John joked, "Don't like cats?"
"Cats, yes. Cougars, no," Jenny said through a smirk.
They headed down the sidewalk flanking State Street toward the student halls. John thought they could sit outside at the Union with privacy as most students were gone in the summer. They found a table on the lawn with flanking bench seats and sat opposite each other.
Jenny laid her brief case on the table and said, "We have yet to find your sample, however—"
"Any news on Carl? It's been a long time."
"However," she repeated, "there have been other possible TIAs discovered since the first theories about your sample flooded the net. Most seem to be phony, but one, we believe, could be potentially verifiable."
John looked at her, "You think there's something in the TIA theories?"
"All I can say is that there are some in the government still intrigued by it. But the other specimen has been lost as well before we could study it."
"You mean stolen like 13-C."
"Likely. However, this artifact's disappearance from a Paris museum is possibly more important. It means there could be a broader conspiracy than we earlier thought possible."
"You're afraid Dr. Watkins could also be a victim of this conspiracy." John glanced around to make sure no one was nearby and said, "What were the other objects?"
"I'm sorry I can't say more; however, one of the artifacts was found on Martinique in the 1930s."
"That's a big coincidence," John said.
"I agree," Jenny said. "We would like your help, but it will mean sometime away from your work."
"How long?" John shifted his weight on the bench and finding it hard to think about a possible hiatus in his current research.
"Difficult to say," she said looking past John to the unusual architecture of the Union building. "We'd like to have you comment on our analyses of the TIA's electron microscopic images," she said
He hesitated trying to recall the EM work. "Images? Wasn't there just the one image?" he asked.
"There were several images on the drive you provided us. It turned out the raw data was incredibly fascinating."
"I'm not an EM guy."
"It's not so much the analyses, but the interpretation. And what that means to your and possibly Dr. Watkins' safety," she said reaching into her briefcase. "You'll need this for now." She pulled out an ID badge with his driver's license picture and name imprinted on it along with 'Contractor NGA' in bold red letters at the bottom. There was a small, animated hologram of an eagle clutching an hourglass in the upper left corner; the ID was smart.
"They won't let you on the plane without it," she explained.
"Plane?" He disliked the new RPAs in common use across the US.
"Will you help, John?" she asked. "I'd like to show you the data this week, if possible. We can fly out day after tomorrow."
Staring at the geometric pattern in the tabletop, he remembered his last disappointing talk to the dean about tenure. Now worries about Carl had resurfaced after all this time, and he didn't even know if Carl was still alive. Classes would not resume for another five weeks, and he could reschedule a couple of meetings about research projects until the term started again. In addition, Mrs. Sitzer next door would look after Angstrom; her place was like a second home for the cat.
"Okay, count me in," he said reaching for the badge.
Climbing down from a remotely piloted aircraft at Nebraska's Offutt Air Force base, John saw Jenny was there to greet him.
"Hello John," she said. "I'm
sorry I couldn't make the flight."
"It's no problem, really," he said as he handed over his helmet to the attending ground crew. He hoped Jenny would not notice the sweat stains on his flight suit.
"You must have been cramped," she said looking back at the aircraft.
"I'm fine, the flight was incredible," he said trying covertly to stretch. Noticing that his bag was already in the vehicle, he said, "I thought military efficiency was an oxymoron."
"There are rare exceptions to the rule," Jenny said putting on her sunglasses.
During the drive to the base complex, Jenny explained, "Our Complex at Offutt is a NGA class C complex. That means civilians with proper security clearance can work here, like you. However, there are restricted military personal only areas, but the MPO's are well-marked."
They pulled in front of a building. A sign next to double glass doors read- Image Analysis Laboratory 32G.
John had his badge ready, but there wasn't a card reader insight; the door opened anyway.
Weaving through several corridors, they came to a room signed: Advanced Visualization Environment. Three people, all holding coffee mugs, milled around inside the curved-walled space. A table was setup in the back by the door with sandwiches and drinks.
"Let's get started," Jenny said. "I want to thank Dr. Mackinac for coming to Offutt to give us his opinion on the specimen he discovered."
"It was Dr. Watkins that actually found it," John corrected her.
Jenny smiled and then said, "I've asked each team member to give you a brief description of their expertise as it applies to 13-C. Kim Jin will kickoff."
A young oriental woman began, "I'm a senior EM technician. I have analyzed the raw data for acquisition artifacts and potential calibration problems. The good news is that none of these issues seems to present interpretation challenges. However, the EM model used to acquire these data was surplused years ago and without the original instrumentation it is impossible to rule out some artifacts."
Jenny injected, "When you see the processing, artifacts won't be a primary concern." She nodded at a stocky, middle-aged man, the only one wearing a uniform. "Master Guns."
"Dr. Mackinac, Master Gunnery Sergeant Dutch Mathews," he said shaking John's hand firmly, "advanced weapon systems specialist, United States Marine Corps on loan to the task force."
"Dutch comes to us from the Anti-Terrorism Battalion of 4th Marine Division," Jenny added and then nodded to a tall, thin, young man.
"I'm Robert Polleto," he said enabling their three-dimensional viz space, "the senior imaging processing specialist. I have run your data through various NGA image-enhancing software packages. We do a lot of satellite and drone image analyses so we don't get to work at the microscopic scale too much."
"This first image is one you are familiar with," Jenny said as a large view of 13-C appeared in front of them.
John recalled the old, two-dimensional EM photograph, but this image was in three-dimensional and was in color, not the usual black and white. "Impressive," he said.
"We've extrapolated the image into a three-dimensional model from the raw data," Robert said. "Lucky for us the original EM operator did a sweep."
Jenny handed John the three-dimensional controller.
Getting used to the user interface quickly, he discovered he could pull 13-C closer or push it father, lift, drop, or rotate it.
John said, "Zoom out." The image de-magnified until the 13-C appeared about two meters long. However, the floating scale below it indicated it measured ten centimeters.
"We've combined all the raw data into one model so we can explore at this scale or up to its maximum magnification," Robert said.
Jenny said, "Let's have a look at the hexagonal structure."
"Zoom in. Stop," Robert commanded as subtle hexagons appeared over the otherwise smooth surface.
"The hexagonal surface structure extends into the material," Jenny added.
"Remove matrix," Robert said as the off-white image of the silica material disappeared revealing a complex structure below.
"This is where rotation comes in handy. Go ahead, John," Jenny said.
"What's the material?" he asked, referring to the tubes and rotating the image.
"One hundred percent carbon," Kim replied. "It's a fullerene structure of carbon nanotubes. They have a unique molecular structure which results in extraordinary material properties, including high-tensile strength, electrical conductivity, ductility, relative chemical inactivity and an extreme resistance to heat."
"This carbon state is graphene," Jenny explained, "but unlike common graphite, graphene contains quasi particles known as massive chiral fermions."
"You just lost me," John said rotating 13-C's image to align several of the nanotubes so he could look down them to the center of the barrel.
"Let's leave quantum enigmas for later. What's important is they seem perfectly formed to fit the barrel's overall shape," Jenny said.
"Bucky tubes," John said remembering the twentieth-century discovery.
"Kind of," Jenny said. "Zoom into sectors AB-24 through 30, Robert."
"Matrix on," Robert said as the imaged zoomed. The complexity of the tube's structure became simple hexagons again."
"See anything unusual?" Jenny asked.
"Are some of the line segments composing the hexagons blurred slightly?" John asked.
"Good observation. It took us a while to notice," Robert said. "We can segregate those anomalous line segments by color." Each instantly turned red, and they seemed to form loose groups.
"Now for the magic, Doctor," Robert said as the image zoomed in order to show several groups of red lines with new, computer generated small, round, red balls on each end. "Area fill," Robert commanded as each group became a better-defined polygon, but still very angular. "Display smooth and interpolate run 23."
"They're numbers," John said, clearly recognizing a five and eight in the new image.
"Show the whole sequence, please," Jenny requested.
It took a moment for what John was seeing to sink in as the full three-dimensional model of the TIA inscribed with 'Smith & Wesson CPB10582' appeared. If there was more, it was lost to the damaged end of the artifact.
"I think I need a drink," John said as he looked into his mug only to find dregs.
"Master Guns," Jenny said to the Marine.
"Yes, Ma'am," he said. "The characters and numbers on the object are consistent with serial numbers of previously manufactured Smith & Wesson weapons. However, the CPB suffix is unknown today. Also, the serial numbers are usually inscribed on the frame, not on the barrel," Dutch explained.
"It is a gun barrel," John said to no one in particular.
"My best guess," Dutch said, "it is a barrel of a projectile weapon. However, in this case the projectile can't be a solid because of the change in diameter at the muzzle. Therefore, the projectile has to be a non-solid. Choices are metals in a fluid state, but attaining those temperatures in a hand weapon present a difficult challenge. A plasma slug or e-bolt, produced by an explosive or electrical discharge seems more likely."
"Amazing," John said.
"Thank you, Master Guns," Jenny said.
"How advanced could this technology be?" John asked.
Jenny said, "If we extrapolate the serial number to average sales of handguns in general- seventy-five to one hundred twenty years is the production range."
"But this assumes it was not part of a large block purchase and sales trends are consistent in the future," Dutch added.
Jenny continued, "If we make an educated guess at the rate of technological evolution of ceramics as well as fullerene applications, we can get a rough date for the barrel's manufacture."
"The answer is?" John asked.
"It's very rough- 2170 to 2300," Jenny said. "If it was part of a block purchase like a military order in the thousands, it conceivably could have been manufactured as early as 2100."
John drank the dreg
s of his cold coffee and didn't even flinch.
"So you've narrowed it down to plus or minus a hundred years," John said thinking aloud. "I guess it's not so much how far in the future it came from, but just that it came from the future. Do you really think that is possible?" John looked to Jenny as he started to realize this probably was not some government science project designed to waste taxpayer's money.
"We should talk," Jenny said. "You get some hot coffee, first."
"Good idea," John said. He thanked the others while refilling his mug in the back of the viz-room and then followed Jenny to a nearby office.
The office was austere, obviously a room reserved just for visitors. Sitting down in one of two chairs, John looked troubled. He was trying to decide which issue to tackle first with her, his purpose here or the consequences of 13-C's estimated age.
"We believe Carl Watkins could be alive," she said standing up and moving to look out the window.
"Really? That's fantastic!" John exclaimed.
"It seems a white supremacist group has been looking for him off and on since his disappearance," she said.
"Who?" John asked.
"Homegrown terrorists with warped ideologies, mostly centering on making money illegally."
"Why are these people looking for Carl?" John asked, setting down his fresh coffee.
"That's not clear, but we have reason to believe they are allied with a global terrorist group. If they are still looking, then there is a real possibility that he is still alive. There is something else," Jenny added. "Obviously, the theories about the TIA on the net were correct almost from the start, from just before Dr. Watkins disappeared."
"And I thought it was all just crap," John said.
"We also believe the net has been influenced heavily, keeping those theories alive for years."
"But why put the truth out? That's a bit out of character for terrorists."
"Good question." Jenny sat down, but didn't offer to say more. Changing the subject, she asked, "Any ideas as to why 13-C was in Martinique at the time of the Pelee eruption?"
"I have no idea, but it was there during the eruption. There was a pebble melted into it."
"Yes, I remember."
"I supposed there are good reasons for it to be there," John speculated, "but geologically the eruption was a huge scale, a global event, rare in recorded history. It blew apart half a mountain in a colossal release of energy."
Jenny said, "Energy is mass, right? Then, there was a significant mass relocation during the eruption," she said taking notes on her pad for the first time.
"I would say so." John said glancing at her pad. "There would be a gigantic amount of potential energy transferred from pressurized magma and gasses inside Pelee to the kinetic pryroclastic plume and flow almost instantly. This kind of eruption would result in a massive shockwave, seismic events, and vaporization of tons of rock, soil and flora."
"Perhaps we need to re-visit Martinique and look for more evidence about the TIA. We need to know more about it as well as why it was there in 1902."
"Can we get back to time travel itself?" John asked.
"Yes, of course," Jenny said.
"And what am I really doing here? I can't see you need me for much of anything. And, why have you expended so much effort in order to show me your analyses?"
"My gut says we do need your help John," she said, "I can't tell you everything yet."
"Why not?" he asked.
"We need a commitment of confidentiality from you before I can discuss it further."
"I said I would help, and I don't mind signing a confidentiality agreement."
"John, I wish it was that easy. You were a second lieutenant in the 355th Engineers. I can reinstate your commission; that's what it'll take."
"A commission? I'm not exactly the military type anymore, never was for that matter, and I'm pushing 50," he said feeling like Jenny was recruiting him.
"I've stuck my neck out a long way for you on this, and it could be a great opportunity for your career," she added quickly, looking him in the eyes.
"This is crazy," he said softly, reflecting on both his dead-end academic career and the intriguing scientific possibilities now suggested by 13-C's existence.
"Do you need to take some time to think about it?"
He knew his answer. It didn't make a lot of sense even as he felt the all too familiar pull of a potentially all-absorbing project. "No, not really," he replied slowly. "I'm in."
"Thanks, John," she said.
"Do I need to sign anything?"
"Of course." She told her screen to open several files. "For now, e-agreements will be fine. Are you okay leaving for the Mountain in the morning?"
"The Mountain?"
"The Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station or CMAFS," she explained. "We just call it the Mountain. Our NGA's project HQ is there."
She finished processing his induction forms in a few seconds. "Thank you, Captain Mackinac," she said with a trace of formality.
"Tomorrow morning, sure," he said. "You guys move fast."
"I'm afraid there is literally no time to lose," she said.