Chapter 12

In the morning hours of March 6, 1836, a few hours before dawn. The silence was broken by shouts of “¡Viva Santa Anna!” and bugle calls with a few shots being fired. The noise startled and woke the sleeping Texians who just hours before had settled down for their first uninterrupted sleep since the cannonade siege on the fort had started, nearly two weeks before.

Colonel Travis who been sleeping himself had hurried to his post calling out, “Come on boys, the Mexicans are upon us, and we’ll give ‘em hell!” Prophetic words as just then the ground outside the walls exploded as if hell itself were coming up to claim its due. The force of which threw Travis back, possibly saving his life. His last thoughts before everything went black was, “Aww, fuck me...”

Months earlier...

It would have been nice to say all my problems had ended with the successful routing of the Japanese from the Philippines, with the ending of WW2 with the German surrender, and with Stalin receiving the short end of the stick, for which he was most displeased (I, however, was quite pleased!):but no, the simple fact remained that my people and I were still stuck in the past, on an alternate timeline, with currently no way back.

I was in my office - not the one in my living quarters, but the one I had taken over from my Chief Engineer - going over some of Grandfather’s recordings, as well as everything I had recorded of the test. It was troubling that my grandfather seemed to know a good deal more about my present situation than he had let on, and was still not as forthcoming about those details as I felt he should have been.

Adam, though a useful one, was still a tool, and one I had yet to master. I believed there was some programming within it, that made it unresponsive to many of my queries. I suspected, this was also my grandfather’s doing. Grandfather would say, “Tools are okay, but you should never rely on them should they fail you.” Grandfather had always encouraged me to think on my feet. This was one such case. Somehow I knew all the pieces to the puzzle were there, it just wasn’t your usual problem where you could just simply slip the pieces together. It was a case of ‘the pieces that looked like they wouldn’t fit, did;’ and ‘those that looked like they would, didn’t.’

The one thing I had gathered from all this was that nothing seemed to be at all what it appeared to be, and that many things were in fact diversions, to keep people from guessing at the truth. The truth was always different or greater than any I could guess. The more I looked at it, the more I came to realize it was much like a magic act. Only, in this case, the audience wasn’t supposed to recognize an illusion was being performed on them. I was the apprentice magician trying to perform the trick, with an unfortunately dead Master, who was still trying to teach me from the grave, and being a pain-in-the-ass about it as well.

So I laid the pieces of my puzzle before myself. There didn’t seem to be that many, but even that might be a deception. I picked up the envelope I had taken out of the glove box from the car that started me on this path. The memory of the Mission Impossible tape came to mind, as I shook out the contents. To be sure it was looking like an Impossible Mission task, but somehow “Jim” always got it done, and in 60 minutes or less. Granted it was just a TV show.

I looked over the list and had Adam replay the recording grandfather had left me. Of the things on the list, the most significant items that Grandfather had wanted me to see, I still had – well, at least after a fashion - and those things he had told me not to bother with, were gone. Strange, how that had worked out. Was I reading more into this than there was?

There was a chime, Adam spoke to me then, “Jim, you are requested in the conference room.” The chime was something new. Somehow, Adam had come to realize that just speaking without any sort of forewarning was somewhat disconcerting. I chalked it up to his monitoring my vitals.

Hmm, I thought to myself, I was unaware of a meeting scheduled for this time. I asked, “Who wants me?”

Adam responded, “It appears to be the Department heads of each of your divisions.”

I thought to myself, funny I was just thinking of them, as I looked back at my list. “Let the Department heads know I’m on my way.”

Adam’s reply came back, “Affirmative.” Adam’s computer voice responses seemed to shift from formal to informal, and sometimes even to a friendly personal touch.

‘With the war over, by all accounts, this had to be about getting back home,’ I thought. I looked at my papers, and gathered them all up and took them with me.

The Department heads were all standing when I entered the room, and there were more people there than I had expected. I called out, “Please, will you all be seated,” as I made my way to the head of the table.

Looking from face to face, there didn’t seem to be anything astray or even troubling to be read from them.

I was still looking at them. When it dawned on me, I still didn’t know why the Department heads called for me, and from the looks of it, they wanted me to start the meeting. I called the meeting to order. I don’t know why I did it, perhaps to relieve the tension that seemed to be building up within me. “Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t suppose any of you know why I called you all together, and if one of you does, could you remind me of what it was?” They started looking at each other as I hadn’t called them, but they had called me. I didn’t see any smiles, so I gathered it hadn’t been that funny. I won’t be quitting my day job anytime soon.

I sighed, “Okay, I am here, what do you have to tell me?” Again I looked at them, and suddenly some of the pieces of the puzzle fell together. More than that, one of the pieces that had seemed least likely to fit, suddenly seemed to be the key piece, make that two, as the little man was there, and he didn’t appear to be lost, as he often did. He was sitting not with the IT Head, but with the Medical group working on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and he seemed rather pleased with himself.

I held up my hand, to stop anyone that was about to speak, and said, “You know it is indeed a small world, I was just thinking about all of you, and how you are related, though not so anyone might notice.” Then I looked at the small man, and directed my question to him, “This is all about you, isn’t it?” and he looked a bit surprised that I had guessed, then he turned to the Doctor seated next to him.

I saw my little man was still not as forthcoming as expected, though he seemed eager to do so, so I turned to the Doctor next to him, “Doctor, if you would, please explain.”

The man looked a bit sheepish himself as he started, “Well, as you know my department didn’t have a great deal to do with preparations for the war effort. We were able to do some minor work, but for the most part, we fell back to our original research. The trouble was, we didn’t have anyone with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease to study. Well, none that had been diagnosed with it. In this time period, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s hadn’t even been recognized as a disease. However,” and at this, he turned to the little man, “this gentleman came to our lab. He suggested we consider him, as he said he had a problem. However for the life of him, couldn’t say what it was. The man didn’t know, just that something was not right, and he felt at a loss about it, and felt we might help with it.”

The Doctor continued, “So we ran some tests, and it didn’t look like Alzheimer’s, and to be sure it wasn’t Parkinson’s. So we ran a deeper brain scan, then we ran another. Neither one seemed to make much sense. Then one of our techs did a scan on himself and compared it to one that he had made of himself before the...” the Doctor then sort of cleared his throat and coughed, “ ... the incident with the button.” The Doctor paused again, and then went on, “and the tech noticed that there was a similarity between his before and after scans and those of our friend here, though our friend’s here were much more advanced. This gave us a starting point. To make a long story short, I’m now pleased to tell you now that the change in the brain pattern is reversible.” There were collective sighs of relief, and a smattering of applause around the room.

I can say I found this news a relief as well. I wasn’t sure I could get us back with just one jump, or if it might take many, with each adding a disturbing dysfunction to our minds.

With this, the little man spoke up, “While I’m not one hundred percent back, I’m not quite the scatterbrain I was before.” I had never thought of him as scatterbrained, but rather self-absorbed to the point he seemed to operate in his own little world.

The Doctor took up again, “It has taken us some tries to get this far, and several year’s worth of work. He still can’t recall just how many times he has made this jump before, our best estimate is five to eight times, but our gentleman seems to think it has been much more perhaps a hundred or more, he has lost track. We have only had the one jump ourselves, so we can’t say with certainty just how it progresses.”

You could see the relief in many of those around the table. While many had heard rumors, none knew for sure what was to be presented here. Well, that took care of one problem: now we could make any number of jumps without worrying much about frying out brains in the process. I looked carefully at our little man, there was much I needed to talk to him about, but I would do so later.

I nodded, “Okay - so where exactly does that leave us, now?”

“Well,” the Doctor continued, “Not much better than we were before. While reversible, it does take some time, and we do have thousands of people as patients.”

The uplift that had been in the room seemed squashed. Then another person cleared the throat to draw attention to himself. It did, and we were all looking at him expectantly. I recognized him immediately as the one to come up with the shielding for the nuclear power plants. He started to speak, “I believe I have something to add to that. But I can’t be sure without further testing.” I frowned at him, most of the people around here didn’t know what his specialty was. He went on. “As you,” looking at me, “know, we developed a very effective shielding for the reactors.” My mind raced ahead, as he continued, “It turns out that nuclear radiation is not the only thing it seems to be good at shielding. We’ve tested a number of emitters: radar, radio, spark generators even heat, which by the way has created its own set of problems...” he paused before continuing, “We - that is, my team - believe that the EMP wave that took us back in time and scrambled our minds can be blocked as well, but that is where we need to do further testing.”

He had the rooms undivided attention, no one had known about his department’s work, and how it might relate to them. Now it was becoming apparent that working together would produce results none had thought of, while limited to their own specialties.

“When you visited our labs before you saw those solid blocks, that did the shielding. We have been working that angle, and found that a much thinner barrier can do the trick. With that in mind we made cloth, and paint!”

What? And I believe the room was sharing my perplexity.

He looked surprised, “We can make protective clothing, and paint the rooms and they would be shielded as well.” Looking at us as if it should have been plain to see.

Actually, it was. I had been thinking it, but must have had one of my brain freeze moments as my mind hadn’t followed through.

Reversing the brain patterns would not be necessary. Other than those that still needed it and had been waiting their turn on the waiting list.

“What do you need to perform your tests?” I asked.

There his face fell, “Well, we would need to do another timeline jump to be sure; and if it turns out it doesn’t work,” he let that hang in the air.

The room started to buzz as people started talking to each other, discussing it. It surprised me that those discussions didn’t last long. One hand went up, and he stood to speak, “let’s do it.” And there was a murmur of agreement throughout the room.

“Okay,” I said, “We will. Now, just how long will it take to prepare?”

This was where he looked around saying while they could make it, he had no idea how long it would take to paint an area that would protect everyone or how much it might take. Or any idea how such painting might affect the EMP wave generated. Another round of discussions began.

Another stood up and asked, “Doctor Franken Stine, is anything more than the bain patterns affected by this EMP wave the time jump creates?”

Doctor Stine stood, “There might be some motor functions disrupted. Evidenced by the number of injuries that occurred with that time jump. However, all signs point that is just temporary disruption and not permanent.” He went on, “Of course, it’s hard to say just how much of that might be the changes in the brain patterns.”

The man nodded, “Good! Maybe painting entire rooms will not be necessary.” Looking rather pleased with himself, he went on, “Some of you may not know that besides making advanced robotics, we’ve been known to make toys and bicycle accessories. One item was bicycle helmets.” There were nods to this as the connection was made. “I believe with the good Doctors assistance we could design a helmet that would protect the brain from the EMP wave.” More nods of approval. “And with our manufacturing abilities could produce all we needed in a few weeks time.”

This I thought to myself was just the thing I was hoping for when I suggested they worked more closely together, and crossed disciplines to achieve different results and applications.

Then Nick stood up. He cleared his throat, and started, “While I may well be the least tech-savvy person here. We have come to an agreement that while we all want to go home, it may not be the straight shot we would all be hoping for, and that it might take more than a few attempts. With that in mind, this is not our world or time, and even with as much time as we have invested here, it never will be. I suspect there are a few who may want to remain behind when we do jump again. I have people watching and evaluating them. Abraham has been informed just in case they manage to slip past my people. They may not be the team players he will appreciate if they do defect.

“We have already disturbed the timeline here, for better or worse, and while I would like to think the best of our people here, as one well-grounded in security matters, I know that this is not always the case.

“We need to leave before we develop a God complex and think everything we do is for the best and start enforcing our beliefs on all by force. There was a rumbling of agreement throughout the room.

“So you can take that lock off the button, now - just give us a heads up when you next plan to push it.” Then looking at the man who had suggested making and wearing helmets he said, “I wear a size eight and a quarter.”

There was some light laughter with that last statement.

I had to smile myself, “Okay, you have a deal.” There was some applause in the room. I continued, “Well, as most of you understand, our trip back in time was most unexpected - we were lucky it was only a hundred years and not a thousand or even ten thousand, or perhaps a million years.” That brought people up short, and made them realize what a crap shot it could have been.

My little man spoke up - “To the best of my recollection it has never been more than a thousand years, which is not to say we couldn’t go back twice in a row, or more often.” Someone in the room asked about going forward - after all, we wanted to get back to our own time, and that meant going forward. The little man went on, “Of course it is possible, but when I have gone ahead farther than my own time, I seemed to have been bounced back rather smartly. Then there is the possibility I have gone far enough ahead of my time and not jumped back simply because there was nothing there to bounce me back. If that indeed happened, I might have thought I had gone back in time, not forward.” That got a few people pondering and shaking their heads at the implications.

I retook the floor, “Well, in any case, we are not leaving here until I cover as many contingencies as I can think of, I would like your input on this matter as well.” Then I thought of the impending birth of my child. “Doctor, please make it a priority to see what effect the jumps might have on the unborn.”

The way the room went silent, was a sure sign I had asked a question no one had thought or dared to ask, and would indeed affect many of them. To be sure a few children had been born, some just shortly before and after our jump. They would all need to be checked out. Turned out the Doctor was well ahead of me there, and informed me that such tests were already well underway, and that so far children under two years of age were least affected, while the newborn seemed not at all affected. I pressed him on this, and he assured me the findings were quite conclusive, something about a young mind not being fully developed. In any case, all infants were being monitored for any signs of irregularities. With new-borns, you never could tell. So many different things could go wrong, which were totally unrelated to the EMP wave of a time jump.

There wasn’t much more I could think of that hadn’t been gone over, so with that, I ended the meeting with, “Prepare lists of things you need, that we can get in the here and now, and also those things you will need, should replacements become problematic. We may be able to fabricate what we don’t have on hand, given time. But be on the lookout for essential items that would be difficult, if not impossible to replace.”

I got up and made my way to my little man, “Do you have a name?”

He looked back up at me, “We are still working on that.” I wasn’t sure I believed him, but what choice did I have. Then I asked, “I want to talk to you when you have some time to do so.”

He looked back at me. He was clearly quite short of being 100%, and you could see it in his eyes. “Why, yes. I will set up an appointment for that as soon as possible.”

While World War Two was over, I judged the peace wouldn’t last much longer. Japan had already sued for peace – Germany had a year later. Each was to make restitution, just how wasn’t my problem, my bombing campaign had devastated Japan. It was regrettable, but their country would never have surrendered, otherwise. Germany hadn’t been completely ravaged by war, but it wasn’t much better off. They’d be making repayments much sooner than later.

With Japan withdrawing from China, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Nationalists and the Communists. I warned Abraham, how that might turn out. And with foreknowledge, the family could begin to make its long-range plans in that direction. I pointed out to not to let them divide Korea! “Whatever it takes, don’t let them do it!”

The Russians had marginalized themselves, but were still a force to be reckoned with.

While Joseph Stalin would never be looked on favorably by the west, his Five Year Plans had indeed forced his country into the modern industrial age. Decentralizing industry and spreading it out over the whole of his country, so in the end, the German invasion while devastating wasn’t the end of Russia as Hitler had hoped. One could only wonder what Russia might have ended up like had the war not started at all.

The families’ efforts, had made the real difference, and just as the United States was emerging as a world power, so was the ‘Family.’

From what I knew of the family’s history on my timeline, we hadn’t climbed to 1st till the mid-1990’s. Here I felt we had not only moved ahead but were now near a dominating position, just as the United States would become, where the other families would never be a threat. It was new territory for this family, and just because we had surged forward, it would need to be on its guard and not become complacent. To this end, I gave Abraham my family’s business organization plan from my timeline. Abraham saw immediately how it meshed with what he had already been working on. He brought in the various family heads, and together they worked to hammer out the details. When it was all over, I felt confident of the family’s future here.

The new compound in the States, while not complete, (are such things ever?) was mission ready. It was decades ahead of what I had started with. Information was the key to staying ahead, and thanks to the advanced technology I was leaving them, that shouldn’t be a problem. Abraham saw it as clearly as I did, the family would control the new internet, and make sure no other system would be able to compete with it. Much like AT&T, Bell, and Microsoft did in their day.

Due to the extreme cost and the anticipated ending of the war, ‘The Manhattan Project’ was never completed, and all research on it classified top secret. No one had wanted to use such a weapon on European soil in any case. I had explained to Abraham the dangers of nuclear deterrence, and if possible to avoid it.

To be sure someone would learn to build and develop such a weapon. I hoped with the costs involved that it wouldn’t be for a very long time.

I suggested he set up a network to spy out any such work, and quash it if possible. Russia may have heard about the Nazis working on such a weapon, but as we found out later, after the war, they had been nowhere close to one (Also, I had grabbed up all of those that had been working on it.) Only the United States had gotten a working bomb made, and the Russians had only developed it by stealing it from us. But on this timeline, we had halted development on it before it could be finished and tested, so they had no idea there was anything to steal. Hopefully, those that had worked on it would see that finishing it was not a good idea, and would keep silent.

That was not to say nuclear energy was not a good thing, there were many peaceful uses for it, and that was what I pushed Abraham towards. But if the bomb were needed, there would be one in the new compound that could be moved clandestinely. A suitable cover story could be that the country trying to develop a bomb had an accident, and it blew up in their faces. It was sure to be a deterrent, for others to not to try it. It may have been a harsh way to deal with such a problem, but I looked at it this way: if they were not building a bomb, then they would not use it but if they were, then they were doing so that they could then use it. It had to be stopped in no uncertain terms. People, that is Governments just didn’t respond to a slap on the hand. Sometimes they needed their nose bloodied.

America was moving forward on many fronts, that such a bomb was no longer foremost. The family that was doing the driving was in control; that is to say my - or rather, our - family was. Abraham had the history of my timeline, and the list of accomplishments that could be made. He had a jump start on all that, thanks to our intervention. I wondered to myself if given that leap, just how much more might be done. Sixty years after we as a people had landed on the moon, we had never returned, and I urged him not to let that happen this time. He should push to establish a base there and continue manned space exploration, as I felt it was one of the great failings of my time.

********************************

It didn’t take long, before we, or rather I, determined that we were as ready as we would ever be to make the next jump. The study of what had been withheld from me, gave me the clues I needed to have, to gain the confidence to try again. I had reviewed the changes that had been made to my designs, and reverse-engineered them. The little man was recalling, and telling me, as much as he could of his own work, and the adjustments were made to the device. Someone wanted to add a time calibration setting like he had seen based on an old movie ‘Back to the Future.’ He even felt it would look cool to have something looking like a flux capacitor included. A good gag to be sure, but we still didn’t know which way we would be going. Only after making this next jump would we have more information to work with.

We simply didn’t have enough information to calibrate landing points, or times. It was still very much hit or miss, the best we could hope for was a close landing time. Personally, I thought the time we were in the past would add to the time of our return. Still, none of us knew for sure. To be certain, there were no guarantees. Just looking and recalling what our little man had gone through, showed us all that there was no sure thing. But, he had claimed he had been making progress, and was sharing all he could recall, and that he was sure he was closing in on the accuracy of the landing points and times. After all, he wanted to go home, too. Which begged the question, where was his device, and how had he powered it?

I wasn’t getting the help I was expecting from Adam. It had claimed it had held nothing back the first time around, even though there were in his memory recordings from my grandfather saying differently. Was something still being kept from me? I was sure there was. Whatever it was, no help was forthcoming from Adam, nor from the little man, for the time being. Again, I didn’t know if this was by design or part of his problem - it seemed so hit or miss with him at times.

The date was then set for after the births of any babies within the compound, as the question of what might happen to them during the event was still unanswered in my mind. On the bright side, it appeared that as the brains of the unborn were still being developed, so it was deemed there was no permanent harm and whatever did happen, quickly healed. That seemingly went for those that had been born shortly before or afterward. But I wasn’t really reassured and was not going to take a chance with my children as well as any of my people’s babies, so I waited and had scans done on all of them as soon as it was safe to do so. If there was anything, hopefully it could be undone, as it would be for the rest of us.

During the time that we were waiting, we created and tested smaller power devices. These might result in powering vehicles without the odd additional modifications that had sent us back in time on this timeline. With the help of the robotics division, I had a device made about the size of a basketball. Taking no chances I placed it on a ship and had the ship anchored a few miles offshore.

I had put in place as many safeguards as my people, and I could think of. Perhaps against my first instincts, I allowed test animals to be put on the ship as well. I had had several volunteers who wish to be onboard as well, and in spite of the assurances that I had received that the helmets would provide protection, and any adverse effects could be reversed, I vetoed the idea. I was still not convinced we wouldn’t be popping the ship, out of existence.

I warned everyone in the compound of the test, not that most everyone didn’t already know of it. There was a countdown while I asked Adam to go down the checklist to make sure nothing was forgotten. You could say it looked all the world like a launch of a rocket ship. Hundreds of eyes were on monitors, and many were outside watching through binoculars, and telescopes, and recording with their phones.

When the count reached zero, I pressed the button...

For all those not on monitoring stations, it seemed nothing had happened. Anti-climatic to say the least. Some openly wondered if the test had been called off at the last moment. For myself, I let out a breath and then started breathing normally. The trial had gone off flawlessly. The ship was still there, and seeming no worse for wear.

The various stations called out their reports. There were some that seemed disappointed. There was still some shock that in this case, nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

I began to smile as more and more reports came in. The expected power generation was still above what had been expected, but at the same time, it was below maximum safety limits. I sat back down, unaware I had been standing. This had been more or less what I had been expecting when I had depressed this button the first time around.

The trial hadn’t been without some mishaps, some of the test animals that had not been shielded had been shocked senseless, some had died. Of those that had been shielded, most appeared unhurt, though some of the shielded cages seemed to have leaked, and those animals were going to be closely examined. This was not to say that the fish in the waters around the ship had not been stunned. A drone that had been flying around the ship and monitoring was able to measure that fish seemed to have been stunned up to a quarter mile away. Those closest to the ship seemed dead. A clear indication that while the test had been successful, it was not without its dangers.

The test was repeated a week later, with added shielding, and this time I allowed volunteers, that were to be properly shielded. The whole device was shielded this time. And in this case, nothing happened, Yes, nothing! Other than the device within the shield melted down to a puddle of nothing. Nothing ventured nothing gained as they say.