Chapter 2

For the next 20 hours, the four young scientists tested rabbits in every combination they thought possible: in and out of cages, just forward, back and forth, back and forth multiple times, singles and pairs, male-male, female-female, female-male, caged together and caged separately, healthy, unhealthy (previously used rabbits), amputees, normal and sedated, etc.

Sunday afternoon they put the equipment away and tallied the numbers. Most results were not surprising. Some were not only surprising, but also disturbing.

Uncaged objects did not travel in any direction.

Cages did not travel.

Inorganic objects did not travel unless accompanied by a live rabbit.

Inorganic objects disappeared when the subject returned if it was reversed.

Inorganic objects remained if the subject traveled forward and returned when scheduled.

Any thing placed in the cage after the sequence initiated, disappeared but reappeared when the cage was reused.

Rabbits traveling in both directions more than once returned the second time as puréed mush.

Rabbit mush did not travel.

All rabbits returned in perfect condition, whether reversed or not. Amputated limbs were restored, scars disappeared, and diseases were cured. Even advanced stage cancer. No exceptions. Stoned bunnies returned straight, no trace of the sedating chemical.

Rabbits were stronger and more energetic the further forward they traveled.

Rabbits could be sent forward and then reversed. They kept the enhancements, but had no food source.

Reversed rabbits did not consider regular rabbit food edible. The scientists had to figure out an alternative nutrition source before the bunnies starved.

Traveling in groups had no significant effect on any outcome.

Subjects always returned to the cage, even if it had been moved from the coil housing.

The cobalt-iron-copper alloy cages were the only ones that worked.

The four stopped from exhaustion. “So what do we know?” Marly asked.

“If human trials are successful, there is no malady or injury or congenital variance we can’t fix inexpensively. Except for obstetrics, medical research will be limited to physical trauma suffered after reconstruction.” René suggested.

“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, ladies, but that works two ways. If the wrong people control this therapy, it may be made available to the wealthy only or to political supporters. Riches and power are strong motivators.” Kevin continued. “What’s to stop someone from sending hundreds of troopers a hundred years forward, reversing polarity, then dropping an army of super soldiers on a target. Place weapons and supplies at the target, let the troops do the conquering, then watch as they starve, weaken and die. The powers collect the spoils, gain territory and eliminate a future super adversary if the truth gets out.”

“Single-use Supermen.” Marly gasped. “Misinformed or brainwashed recruits just like the suicide bombers.”

Andrea expanded an already terrifying concept. “What if they enhance themselves to create a super race?”

“Worse yet, what if someone figures out how to transport seeds forward then back a little? Are seeds ‘alive’ enough to go where they are sent? Can seeds be viable if reversed? Can enough be sent to pollinate? Can rabbits or even cattle reproduce if repolarized and fed? What if they do the same to themselves? Do we have a super race using an invasive species as nutrition, crowding out food for the unchanged?” Kevin shuddered. “Do we get a self-selected population, unable to breed with and slowly starving the rest of humanity?”

“The Nazi’s wet dream. I vote we suppress this whole project, resign and release the beneficial results to the world later. I don’t care if they sue me to the end of the time. The knowledge will already be out in the world where it can’t be covered up.” Kevin continued. “Too much at stake with too much room for abuse. Look at it this way. Every lab in this complex is staffed with world-class minds who might have no idea where their piece of the puzzle fits into an unknown picture. Someone got into my lab and changed the settings on the field coil, sending us on this tangent. Why did they insist I install a polarity switch on a device intended for a particle accelerator? It would be suicide in practice.”

“Who created the alloy for my cages? Inert plastic is less expensive and just as good. Who wanted to pay for marginally legal cloning research on human stem cells?” Andrea asked. “Where do René’s nanotech and Marly’s quantum studies fit?”

Marly whispered, “Yes, class. I can say ‘conspiracy theory’. Sorry, Kevin my love. Someone isn’t telling the whole story. I vote we shut it down.”

Kevin immediately leapt to the service panel. He managed discreetly to set a trap and disable the polarity controls before the doors flew open with a bang.

“We will not be shutting anything down, Dr. Trudeau. Please step away from the time machine, Dr. Carson. Drs. Rasmussen and Johansson, do not give me a reason to shoot you.” Malincroft snarled, “You don’t work here as of now.” A squad of armed and armored soldiers backed up his words.

“We had hoped to convince you four prodigies to enlist in our cause, but that seems unlikely at this juncture.” He laughed. “No matter. We have your computer notes and calculations, the video recordings and your spoken discussions on surveillance tape.”

The soldiers cuffed the four researchers and sat them on the floor.

“As I said, we no longer need you. I have plenty of loyal scientists who are willing to refine and expand the work you have done so far. Unfortunately for your careers, they will reap the credit for your breakthrough insights, which will surely be the genesis of a new immortal ‘Homo Superiosis’.” He bragged, revealing his previously hidden fanatic megalomania, “But receiving credit is not your real problem today. Lt. Reichert, would you please bring in the big cage?”

An ostentatiously over decorated soldier directed three more men to carry in a huge cage and place it on the coil housing. Malincroft instructed his minions to put the bound captives in the enclosure.

“See? I am right about so many things. Academic credit is not your most pressing issue. Survival is. You are going a few thousand years in the future, and then back one or two. Just enough to make getting a good meal interesting. Maybe I’ll find you and share some of our bounty. Or maybe not. Dr. Thompson, please set the machine to the year 4510. It’s time to send our pioneers up the road.”

It was happening so fast, the friends had little time to react. And was over even quicker. “Girls, get away from the landing zone, now.” Kevin shouted, cutting through the shock. The transport or displacement or time travel, or whatever, was subjectively instantaneous.

“I screwed with the controls. They can’t reverse our metabolisms and can’t retrieve us if we move far enough away.” He said rapidly, “If they try, they will blow up the entire lab complex. Even Malincroft isn’t that crazy.”

“What did you do, my hero?” Marly mock swooned.

“I broke the polarity adjustment and set an obvious short circuit trap. They will have to power down, do the repairs and retune the coils. They are tuned to my specs, not the book. They can still time travel, but not as precisely as we could and not to places we went already.”

“Speaking of places we’ve sent things, where the hell are we now?” Andrea noticed in alarm. “This is not the Great Smoky Mountains I remember. I smell salt water.”

“Taller, more craggy here, more worn over there, oddly mixed vegetation tells me we’re in a more different place than a couple of thousand years of erosion can explain.” Kevin worried. “There are factors at work we could not anticipate.”

“A factor we did anticipate was the lack of clothes. Lab coats are engineered fibers and ours are in the cage back in 2015. I don’t mind y’all looking at my tits. I like them, too.” René giggled nervously. “But we are going to freeze three sets off if we can’t get some shelter or covering soon. Kevin, can we say ‘shrinkage’, class?”

“He is still better than some I’ve seen on the Internet.” Andrea pointed to Kevin. “Not that I’ve ever seen a real one.”

“If that thing is shrunken, be afraid. Be very afraid.” Marly stared.

“TMI alert!” He grinned, “I know Marly wanted to wait until our wedding night, but are all three of you ‘nice girls’?”

The three admitted to concentrating on academics so hard, any early social life slipped away. Then, once established in a professional position, they found no one who they cared enough about to give it up. As René said, “I ain’t giving it to any old geek just to get screwed. I want it to count!”

“Kevin, will you be a dear and let us girls talk? That’s a good boy.” Marly playfully pushed him away. “Find us somewhere to sleep.”

“Ugh. I find good cave and fire. You find eats. Stay in grunting distance. No get lost, be bear food. Make Kevin lonesome.”

Once he was out of sight, the three women talked seriously of survival, exploration and personal relationships among themselves and with Kevin. Both René and Andrea admitted to having crushes on him, but never made a move because they loved Marly too much. In reality, they never made a move because they never made moves on anyone.

René confessed to arranging the occasional costume malfunction whenever he visited their apartment, pretending embarrassment, but getting a sexy thrill each time. Andrea tried to transfer to his lab as an assistant, but her biology background was a bad fit for his research concentration.

Marly, secure in her relationship with Kevin, had noticed the girlish antics of her roommate, actually being entertained. Andrea’s attraction, while unanticipated, was not surprising. He was easy on the eyes and a nice, considerate guy, after all. Plus, she was not the jealous type of woman. She had no problem sharing him, especially if it bound the travelers tighter. Her attitude toward mistresses was more European than North American.

They agreed to let things develop naturally. Andrea, the biologist, urged them to find edible plants. “I see greens we can use in salads, lots of pine nuts, blueberries, and pecans. That is an apple tree, so we won’t starve soon. But those ferns were extinct two ice ages ago and have no business being in the same climate with apples.”

“It isn’t just the flora. Look at where that cliff is sheared. The sediment layers are horizontal, then vertical, then crisscrossed among layers of glassy igneous rock. That is geologic madness.” Marly pointed out. “Where is the talus from the avalanche that exposed the cliff face?”

“It should be under our feet, but this soil is a good mix of beach sand and rich garden compost. We can grow food for years if we have water.” René crumbled some dirt in her hand. “This is damp already. There has to be water near.”

“Maybe it rains a lot or the water table is close to the surface.” Marly guessed, “Yaupons, apples, blueberries, giant ferns, pecans and pines growing out of the same sandy compost equals some scary funky weather at this altitude.”

“We should have at least scrub grass. The tree canopy is too thin to shade it out. All we have are bushes and trees.” Andrea said. “And the ferns, of course, that are extinct.”