The meeting broke up, with several of the team members needing to get to various projects. The experience had been a deeply emotional one for Danielle. As she became more and more deeply involved in the Time War, the implications seemed overwhelming. The facts were obvious. Performing time alterations was dangerous beyond belief. One thing was certain in Danielle's mind. There was no way in hell that she would ever go back to work for that maniac, Arachnid. What had seemed adventurous and well paid now seemed to be a one way ticket to hell. Her natural response was to simply return to Nevada, cash in her Bitcoin, and load up the CRV for a drive to the Pacific Northwest. A nest egg like she had would surely be enough to set her up in some nice community, near the Pacific Ocean. She could find a college suitable to finish her journalism certificate, and establish her adult life in that lovely part of North America.

  There was just one problem. Now that Danielle was aware of the machinations of the Time War factions, she was aware that her adult life might never take place, or might be erased at the whim of an AI, 400 years in the future. 'What should I do?' wondered Danielle.

  Beverly Andrus and Heather Armstrong were charged with showing Danielle around the facility. It was a sprawling arrangement, with decades of work and modifications to equipment having been performed. It wasn't just the fact that this out of the way community came complete with its own 50 MW hydroelectric dam, but there was also endless spare parts and equipment free for the taking, since most every facility was in a state of abandonment. "We rarely have to buy much, which is a good thing because we don't have much money, and hardware stores are a long way away. Jamari is particularly good at making do. His old job was to keep the diesel power generator running for his hometown in Eritrea," explained Heather.

  As they walked up along the roadway, Danielle could see the surface of the lake appear as they emerged over the top of the cement dam. A roadway was built at the top of the spillway, which was about 50 metres above the surface of the ocean inlet. The lake itself was massive and extended for 25 kilometres towards the heart of the Coastal mountain range. "As you can see," commented Beverly, "The water never runs out here. We are only limited by the design constraints of the original powerhouse and the diameter of the penstocks. Over the years, the guys have been able to coax a few more megawatts out of the old turbines. They are housed down there," said Beverly, pointing towards a cement building at sea level. The large penstock water pipes led from near the top of the dam right into the base of the powerhouse. "The time machine is in there. We should go down and see it."

  The three women walked down the spillway stairs and entered the cement powerhouse via the upper steel doors. Walking inside, Danielle was overwhelmed by the sight. On the main floor below their steel mesh catwalk, was a large assortment of connected electrical equipment. Most prominent in the assembly was a large metal dome, connected by piles and cables to wide metal tubes and huge coils of copper wire. There were control panels and metal cages, and working amongst all of the equipment was Kenji, Jamari and John Teator. Danielle could hear a loud humming sound, which she understood to be the sound of the rotating turbine.

  "What is the purpose of the metal dome, Beverly?" asked Danielle.

  "Essentially, the whole thing is a giant Van de Graaff generator. As near as we know, this is the largest one ever built. The purpose is to produce a 50 MW burst of power, large enough to power our time travel cage. The intention is to warp the time stream for just a moment, and use it to transmit our agent forward thirty years. Jamari met a technician from 2136, who suggested the idea. He gave Jamari a special tool, to line up the time travel cage and calibrate the date and time of time line re-entry," explained Beverly.

  "How do you know it works?" asked Danielle.

  "We are not sure that it will work, and the equipment we have is designed for a single, one way trip. Dispatching an agent forward in time may well prompt a reaction by Arachnid. If you do take on this mission, Danielle, be sure to clear out of Ocean Falls as soon as you can," responded Heather.

  "What if the attempt fails?" asked Danielle.

  "Then it is back to the drawing board," responded Heather. "Oh look! Jamari is waving us down onto the main floor. Let's go down."

  Heather, Danielle, and Beverly walked down the metal stairway onto the cement work floor. The industrial scene was a stark contrast to the hermetically clean and organised time transport facilities that Danielle had seen in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. There were no white lab coats or office greeters. There were no carefully laid out period clothing ensembles or era accurate devices. 'Nobody here is collecting bloated salaries. Pay day is sure to net $0 in my bank account,' thought Danielle, to herself. 'And if I get into this thing, I won't be coming home.' That thought was genuinely scary.

  "You made it!" shouted Jamari, against the loud hum of the turbine. "What do you think of our machine?"

  "It's a bit scary, to be honest!" replied Danielle.

  "I know what you mean, but we are quite confident that it will work. Let me show you something," and Jamari directed her over to a somewhat quieter section of the powerhouse, further away from the turbine. "Have a look at this."

  In contrast to most of the building, the alcove housing the control room was clean and organised. The device that Jamari directed her attention to was a high tech computer of some sort, with four cables leading to a metal cage on the near side of the metal dome. There was no brand name on this equipment and it looked to Danielle's eyes, to be a highly specialised machine.

  "This is a time stream projector. I received it from a Tiger technician that I met in Eritrea. He smuggled it back to us, to give us a shot against the AIs. This machine comes from the year 2136. Much of what we know about the 22nd century was told to us by that fellow. I met him twice, while he was conducting two separate missions, back in 2012, and his name was Dakari. He was working on maximising the size of two Egyptian solar power farms, and had a lot to say about the influence the Tiger AI had on African development. Let me show you how this works." With that, Jamari flicked on the switch and the screen came to life.

  One half of the screen showed a readout that represented the metal cage. All of the numbers associated with the cage currently read zero. The other half of the screen contained numbers, dates and times. Jamari scrolled through various dates until he produced a readout of 8:00am, July 18, 2057. "That is our target date, Danielle. We believe that will give you enough time to get to Europe and change Max Rudolf's mind about his experiment."

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  "So let me get this right. The idea here is for me to get into that cage, and have you guys pump 50 megawatts through the system and blast me forward thirty years. How am I supposed to believe that it will work? Where did your buddy Dakari get this thing, and why did he give it to you?" asked Danielle.

  "Dakari was convinced, like the rest of us, that the Time War factions must be stopped. He had become aware of the tragic future in store for most of Africa, and desperately wished for control of his home continent to be restored to the people who lived there." responded Jamari. "As to how he came to possess it? Dakari claimed that this was a prototype forward time travelling device from his institution, the University of Asmara."

  "How is it supposed to work?"

  "Our job is to produce a 50 mega watt static charge and connect it to the transit cage. Those wire devices on the outside of the cage were part of the equipment smuggled here by Dakari. Fully powered, the cage separates from this time stream. Time passes normally for everything else in this building, but the cage experiences no time passage until the arrival date. The cage, and everything inside of it, arrives in the year 2057," detailed Jamari.

  "Is there any way to return the cage to this timeline?" asked Danielle.

  "That would require a Tachyon D manipulating device, which we certainly don't have access to. From the sounds of it, we also don't have nearly the power generating capacity to work one of those machines anyway. Travelling forward in time is difficult, but backwards in time is another league altogether. Consider that the first Tachyon D particles required the use of a CERN particle accelerator."

  "So, all we would be accomplishing is to end the ability of factions to manipulate the past? They could still influence the future?" asked Danielle.

  "Much thought has been put into that question, Danielle. First off, yes, travelling into the future will remain possible. In fact, it has always been possible. Simply accelerating to a relativistic rate of speed, or occupying a space in a powerful gravitational field, will stop you from aging, and when you return to more normal conditions, time will have passed in your absence. However, ending travel into the past will mean that the factions will be unable to change anything before 2428, freeing humanity from their influence. In fact, eliminating the possibility of travelling backwards in time should be a rift fundamentally important enough to end the existence of the factions altogether. Either that, or a rupture between the two realities will take place, isolating the AIs from this course of history. John believes that the AIs will be caught in a time loop, be unable to exit, and be doomed to endlessly repeat the year 2428. I think that they will simply be erased from existence. Whatever the result of reversing the time direction of Tachyon D particles, we are sure that the factions will no longer plague humanity."

  "Okay, I think that I am onboard with the rationale behind the mission plan, and I am reasonably convinced that this machine will work. Let's say I agree to be the time technician that gets into that cage. What do I do when I arrive in Ocean Falls in 2057? Who will be there to help me? Surely, I will need somebody."

  "We are not sure. It will be thirty years from now. I would like to say that it will be me that greets you, Danielle. But probably not. One thing is for sure. We will have someone there, to provide assistance with your journey to Europe. You won't have the documentation required to travel legally and to get to Switzerland illegally will require some help. We definitely don't know exactly what to expect by that year, but a plan will be in place, and people will be there to assist you."

  "So why don't you people just wait 30 years, and develop your scheme to change Rudolf's mind? Thirty years from now you recruit an agent to fly legally to Switzerland and meet this guy in some bar and twist his arm. You wouldn't even need to build a time machine!" observed Danielle.

  "We considered this strategy, and if we never find a technician willing to travel forward then that is what it will be. But there are important reasons to conduct a time mission now. Waiting 30 years requires dodging Arachnid for 30 years, and enduring thirty years of time manipulations. That is very, very likely to lead to failure. Arachnid would erase away our existences, if he found out our scheme. We are certain that sending you forward will lock in the current timeline, provided you succeed in eliminating backward travelling Tachyon D particles. There is no multiverse. There is just one timeline, and your mission will eliminate all time travel into the past, locking this reality into place," Jamari waved his hands and arms all around himself. "What we have now, will be what stays in place forever. That is the goal."

  "Will Arachnid respond to my arrival in 2057?" asked Danielle.

  If he finds out yes, which is why we will cover our tracks, as well as we can, after you leave. In 2057 you need to lay as low as possible. Don't get photographed or scanned in any way. That is one advantage that you will have. By travelling under cover, and crossing borders by non legal means, there is no way for the factions to follow your movements. If your existence is ever compromised, expect the worst. Arachnid will try to stop you."

  "Try to kill me?" asked Danielle, tentatively.

  "The whole approach of the factions, around the Max Rudolf experiment, is to conserve the historical time line. They aren't going to gate in an army of futuristic hunting drones unless they are desperate. But don't underestimate their ability to influence you, and the people around you. If you are found out, you might find yourself arrested, deported or carted off to a prison somewhere. The largest concentration of timeline babysitters in history live in 2057 Europe. Their job is to monitor the time line and preserve it."

  "I don't know about this Jamari. I am not sure that I am up to this mission," explained Danielle, with some exhaustion evident in her voice. "I am still don't understand why you even think that I am the right girl for the job."

  "There is one piece of equipment that we haven't shown you yet, Danielle. A device that should be able to get you all the way to CERN, undetected. Something that pretty much only you can wear. It might be the right time to let you in on this. We need to go back over to the mill site."

  "Sure," agreed Danielle. This whole thing was hanging heavily and her mood was deteriorating. Committing to this project was going to be a serious challenge. She planned to hear them out, but she was not at all certain that her answer would be yes.

  Back at the meeting room in the wood mill building, the members of the Time War resistance sat around their group table. Mei Li had a sophisticated looking case in front of her, and was eyeing up Danielle, like she was assessing her state of mind. It had been a long day, and Danielle was tired.

  "Danielle, we are all appreciative of your efforts to consider our proposal. From the sounds of it, you were able to familiarise yourself with all of the equipment we intend to use. There is one more device that you need to know about,' explained Mei. She opened the case and drew out a strangely coloured fabric suit of some kind. The construction was seamless and shimmered in her hands as she set the one piece body suit onto the wooden table. It wasn't very big, perhaps just large enough to fit a child, or maybe a small adult about the size of Danielle. The shimmer of the fabric really was odd, and Danielle could not ever recall seeing such a material.

  Mei Li picked up a small electronic control device from the case and entered an activation code into it. A few more clicks and taps of the touch screen and she looked up at Danielle. "Ready to see it in action?"

  Danielle nodded in agreement.

  "Check this out," said Mei as she made one final tap. The suit disappeared from view.

  Several of the resistance members gasped. Kenji blurted out, "Its a fucking Stillsuit!"

  Mei Li nodded in agreement.