Chapter 74

“I just can’t believe I’m really here,” General Ridgeway declared freely, not speaking to anyone in particular. “This is amazing.”

We were sitting in the upper mess hall. We’d just gotten ourselves settled after I’d sent one of the locals to fetch Kim and the others and they’d just arrived. We were all sipping mugs of herbal tea. My people looked just as surprised to see the General sitting at the table with us, as he seemed to be there. Surprisingly, nothing much had been said yet by anyone gathered at the table. However, I knew that wasn’t going to last much longer. The fact was that we all had questions that needed answering, and the General was the person who could answer them, or so most of us believe. As it turned out, Kim was the first to ask a question.

“How did you get here, Sir?” Kim asked Ridgeway, her voice filled with curiosity.

“That’s a good question, Captain Woo,” Ridgeway replied turning his gaze upon Kim, “and one that I’m not certain I can answer. I’ll try, but I think you people understand what’s going on better than I do.

The General went on to explain that he’d been called to the Special Forces Mojave training centre about a month ago, his time, in response to what he was told was a security issue. On arrival, the base commander briefed him about a curious thing that had occurred the day before, that seemed to be directly related to him. When General Ridgeway had questioned the man on the incident, he’d learned that a drone had landed in the training area, in view of an Alpha Team that had been involved in an exercise. The Alpha Team leader had investigated the drone, and he’d found that the drone contained a documentation package marked Top Secret that was addressed to General Ridgeway. The drone and the documentation package had been recovered by base security and were now under lock and key awaiting the General’s attention.

General Ridgeway went on to relate how he’d gone to see the drone where it was being stored. Base Security personnel had already run the drone’s identifiers through the Material Systems Database. They’d located it as being in storage elsewhere within the Special Forces Command. A priority phone call to that location resulted in assurances that the drone was still in storage. That fact had made the matter even more curious for everyone involved.

Eventually, General Ridgeway had opened the Top Secret package. Base Security had assured him that it contained nothing hostile as far as their examination could tell, without opening the package up, which they hadn’t done. They had used chemical sniffers and x-ray devices to examine the contents, but that was it.

“I can tell you I was stunned when I initially perused the enclosed documentation,” Ridgeway informed us. “I thought it was a practical joke, and I can assure you that I wasn’t amused. I even contemplated drawing up some charges against you two individuals. I didn’t get to that point, mainly because when I checked your names in the system and saw where you were currently stationed, I realized that it would have been impossible for you to pull off such a stunt. That forced me to take another look at the documentation; and, more importantly, the electronic records that you provided. The drone surveillance footage was interesting. Once I saw that, I just couldn’t continue thinking that this whole thing was some sort of practical joke. I just had to take it seriously. So, I started making inquiries into the list of names you provided me. In no time I’d found out a lot about Mr. Winslow, Dr. von Stubbing, and that Senator you identified. What I learned was only preliminary in nature, but it did confirm the existence of a Project Gateway. The results gave me pause to think, and that’s what I was doing when your friend showed up.”

“What friend?” Clara asked quickly, speaking for all of us.

General Ridgeway glanced at Clara for a second and then he glanced at me. He hesitated for a moment as if in thought, and then he shrugged his shoulders as if mentally dismissing a matter from his mind. Once he’d done that, the General went on.

“I can’t really give you his name, because the man didn’t give me one when he popped in to see me in my office,” Ridgeway pointed out in an apologetic manner. “He did identify himself as an emissary from this world’s future. Naturally his appearance out of thin air took me by surprise. It gave him just enough time to capture me, and to cart me off with him, back to where he’d come from. You can imagine how pissed off I was about that, and how amazed I was as well.”

“This man captured you?” Kim muttered aloud, her voice filled with disbelief. “Why?”

At that question I cleared my throat in an effort to catch everyone’s attention.

“I can explain that, if you don’t mind, Sir,” I declared firmly, addressing myself to the General before I went on. He simply nodded his head to indicate that I had his permission. “The emissary was my doing. When I travelled into the future right after we’d captured the Gateway, the people I met there had their own agenda. As I told you when I came back, they were concerned about Winslow’s tampering in their past and our ability to move through time and space. It was one of the reasons they wouldn’t give us a mini-reactor to power the Gateway. They wanted history to unfold the way they’d recorded it, and they didn’t want us tampering with it. Unfortunately, at that time and place, they were aware that history was in flux. It could still be altered unless certain events occurred. The big event that needed to succeed from their point of view, was the bringing of General Ridgeway on board to help defeat Winslow and to disrupt his operations according to the history they knew. For this they wanted me to travel back to Earth so I could convince the General that everything that was in the journal, and the files that we’d sent back in the drone, was the truth; and that he had to act accordingly, following the information provided to him so that history wouldn’t be altered. I argued against going back to Earth. I pointed out that I felt that my travelling back to my own Earth wouldn’t do anything to make the General act in the way that the uptime people of this world wanted him to act. After all, I was a Staff Sergeant and he was a General. I argued that General Ridgeway would act in the interest of the United States, long before he would act in the interest of this world. They weren’t happy hearing my response, but they had to live with it. It did lead to a couple of interesting conversations, one of which was to bring the General here.”

“I don’t get it,” Katherine stated with a look of confusion on her face. “What difference will this make? He’ll still go back to his Earth once we’re done speaking and then act accordingly. How are you going to convince the General to follow the plan?”

“Another good question,” Ridgeway pointed out, smiling as he said it. “Do you want to explain that Sergeant, or should I?”

“I’ll explain it, Sir, since it was my idea in the first place,” I stated calmly and with confidence. “It’s actually simple, Katherine. Although before I tell you the truth, I’m going to clarify something that everyone got wrong from the very start. You see, everyone - including me - assumed that General Ridgeway acted the way he did, because somebody he trusted convinced him to do it. For the sake of argument, everyone assumed that person was me. Well, it wasn’t me. It was us.”

“Us?” Kim repeated looking startled as I pointed this out. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Patience, Kim,” I told the woman, giving her a reassuring smile as I did, “and I’ll explain.”

“I’d figured it out while uptime that there was no way of convincing the General to follow the script, unless I could show him what the consequences would be if he didn’t. To do that I knew that the uptime people of this Earth had to contact the General directly, and that they needed to bring him here so we could speak to him. They also needed to offer the man a carrot.”

“A carrot?” Gabby enquired thoughtfully, interrupting me. “What kind of carrot?”

“A carrot that would benefit my Earth,” Ridgeway replied promptly, taking the discussion back under his control. “Like Staff Sergeant Ryerson has pointed out, my duty is to the United States; not to you, or to a world that doesn’t exist, at least in the minds of most people on my Earth. You’d provided me with ample intelligence suggesting that there was a plot to overthrow the legitimate government of the United States, by individuals whose actions were criminal in nature. Officially, I am duty bound to act on that intelligence, now; not in a year, once I’ve been promoted and reassigned to my new command. Even now, after having been transported to this world, both here and now and in the future, I am duty bound to act against Mr. Winslow and his supporters. The only things preventing that from happening at the moment, is my presence here and the carrot that your uptime friends have decided to offer me.”

“So what is that carrot, sir?” Kim pressed impatiently.

“Trade, Captain Woo,” Ridgeway replied firmly. “The uptime people have offered to open trade negotiations with the United States, in return for our cooperation. According to their plan, I am to be transported back to my Earth once I’m done here, bearing with me a trade deal that I am to present to the President. Your friends, uptime from here and now, are pretty smart. They know that no matter what came out of this meeting, I’d be forced to take what I know to the President. Of course, I don’t have direct access to the President, and a lot of other people would learn about what is going on in the process. The uptime people don’t want that to happen. They have a plan for me to visit the President while he is at Camp David. It will be a clandestine meeting, only involving the President, myself and one other: the emissary from your uptime friends. Their hope is that a deal can be ironed out that will benefit the United States, and that will encourage our cooperation in this matter. The feeling I’ve gotten so far is that your friends are confident that it will work.”

“That’s to be expected,” I interjected at that point. “After all, technically you’ve done everything we’ve asked and more, already. I know that can be confusing, but you’ll get used to it. In a year’s time, according to your timeline you’ll be promoted to Lieutenant-General and made the Director of the Department of Defence’s – Defence Research Department. At that time you’ll be introduced to Winslow and Dr. von Stubbing, and you’ll start recruiting people who will help you from within Quantum to bring the man down. From our uptime friends’ point of view, it is all water under the bridge, as it is for us. However, for you it hasn’t happened yet, and that’s why you’re here. The uptime people want you to understand that what they are asking you to do is for the good of the nation, and that nothing that you will do, will conflict with the code of conduct or with your oath of allegiance.”

“I’m certain they do want me to believe that,” Ridgeway noted aloud, “however, I have my reservations, and I have my own questions that need to be answered. If I do end up speaking with the President, he’s going to want to understand everything, including why Winslow did what he did in the first place. I can appreciate a business man wanting to make money, but wanting to change the course of history is another thing altogether. What made him do what he did in the first place?”

I sighed in response to that question. It was something that we’d discussed over and over again, ever since we found out what Winslow had been up to, and it was something that really didn’t have an answer that any of us really liked. Still the man deserved the truth and it was my job to give it to him.

“I don’t think Winslow ever went into this scheme planning to topple the government, and to rule the world himself,” I told Ridgeway plainly. “Truthfully, to him, Project Gateway was a way to make money. I’m certain that he envisioned opening trade with parallel worlds and becoming filthy rich by controlling the technology. The thought of world domination only came about when others got involved, and when his initial attempts to negotiate with this world fell flat on its face. To be honest with you, I think one of the main triggers to him shifting from being simply a greedy bastard to a megalomaniac bent on world domination, occurred after he saw what happened when he sent Dr. Jenkins and our team back in time. It became clear to him that somehow we’d changed the history of the here and now, and I’m certain that fact wasn’t lost on the man. From what I could see from his correspondence with his pet Senator, it was clear to her as well. Of course, after that, you stepped in and started sabotaging his operations on our Earth, forcing him to abandon Earth, for here. In a manner of speaking, we are all to blame for what happened. If things had gone differently, who knows what might have happened? Maybe Winslow would have abandoned the project all together? I don’t know and I’m certain no one else does either.”

“Which brings us back to why I should follow the script that you’ve sent me, back on our Earth,” Ridgeway pointed out aggressively. “I could easily stop the man before he even got started tinkering with time. I’m certain the President will be of the same opinion. The President could request that the Justice Department issue an arrest warrant for both Winslow and Dr. von Stubbing on national security issues. We could detain him and seize the technology before he even sends his first probe through the Gateway. That would put a stop to him and at the same time put the technology into our hands.”

“And it would be a very dangerous move on your part, General,” I pointed out, interrupting the man. “At the moment we know what the consequences of Winslow’s actions are; however we do not know what the consequences could be if you do as you suggest. Those consequences might benefit the nation, but then again, they might not. They might even topple our government. You don’t know, and you won’t know until after the fact, and by then it will be too late to stop things from happening.”

“So you’re saying it’s better to travel the road you know, no matter how bumpy it might be,” Ridgeway mused in response, “than to travel the road you don’t know, even though taking it makes sense at this moment because it looks to be the shorter route.”

“Precisely, sir,” I admitted without pause, “and you must remember, there is a carrot waiting for you at the end of the road we’re asking you to travel. There might not be one, at the end of the other road. Do you really want to risk that?”

“No, I don’t,” Ridgeway sighed openly in reply. “I’m still not sold on this whole scheme, and until I am I can’t commit to anything. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“We do, sir,” I declared speaking for everyone, “and I know for a fact that our uptime friends know it as well. It does mean you’re going to have to stay here for a bit, and rough it, while we try to convince you that our way is the best way. Regrettably we don’t have any VIP quarters around here to put you up in. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, Sergeant,” Ridgeway chuckled in response. “I’ve spent a night or two in the woods before. I’m sure roughing it will be fine.”

With that we broke up for the time being. Koo, Monty, and Hendrick had work to finish up at the Gateway shelter, and I wanted to take the General about the base, to show him what was left of it. A walk would do us both good, and we could chat more freely than we’d been able to in the mess hall. I was sure the man had a lot of questions, as did I.

General Ridgeway remained with us for two months. In that time I showed him the base and the fishing village that stood at the entrance to it, the Gateway, and by using it, our various communities. I also took him hunting as it turned out that the General was an avid hunter. I gave him ample opportunity to hunt with the men from each of my communities, and I even took him north to the big valley so that he could try his hand at helping us round up some more livestock for our communities. Our herds were growing, but so was our demand for more horses and cattle. The General was impressed at how skilled my men were at herding the animals and controlling them until the Gateway could transport them back to our southern communities. Once I’d shown the man what we were up to, I showed him the facilities in Kuwait and California.

In addition to going hunting the General got to see what we’d been doing back here in the past of this world we were on. He saw the difference between how we were living and how the locals were living. He even took note of how some people clung to uptime technology while others didn’t. For the most part my people had transitioned back to living as we had prior to going to war with Winslow and his goons. Yes, we had some uptime technology integrated into each of our settlements, with lighting being the most significant improvement that we were maintaining, and running water for showers and toilets, but that was it. We still cooked over open fires and we hunted with our bows and arrows. What improvements we’d made had been minor improvements, such as better housing, cleaner water, and, of course, the domestication of animals and the introduction of farming. We were ahead of the game in those areas, whereas the compounds in Kuwait and California were still trailing us.

“It’s interesting,” Ridgeway said one evening while we were out roughing it, along a river in California. “I’ve seen what you’ve been doing here working with the locals, and I’ve seen what Jane Weston and Daniel Smith have been doing. They’re both good people and well meaning, but they haven’t integrated with this world. I don’t think they’re going to make it if they don’t.”

“I know,” I sighed in reply, tossing a piece of wood onto our campfire to help keep it going. “I’ve spoken to both of them about what they need to do to not only survive, but to prosper. Unfortunately, they cling to the attitude that their way is the better way. They’ve developed relationships with the local people, but they really haven’t integrated with them. The locals speak English to them, and both communities trade knowledge for food. They are trying to survive, but they’re not doing very well at it, and in a manner of speaking they are dependent on my tribe to maintain themselves. What they don’t know is that they really don’t have anything that I need. I know that some of my people are happy to be getting the diesel shipments from Kuwait and the peppers and other exotic produce from California. It’s all a bonus from my perspective; however the truth is that we can’t sustain trucks and motorized vehicles much longer. I even worry about the Gateway. Eventually parts will fail and we won’t be able to replace them. The same will happen with anything we’re using that is electrical in nature. One day and most likely in my time, the light bulbs we’re using will burn out. Hopefully by that time I’ll have come up with a low tech replacement.”

“Hopefully you’ll be able to save these people as well,” Ridgeway mused. “They’re an important resource. You shouldn’t waste them.”