Aliomenti Saga 6: Stark Cataclysm (30 page)

The Mechanic straightened up. “That’s the last thing we have to do for this piece. I’m sure there are other tasks to complete over the next year.”

The primary time machine stood off to the side. They’d made thousands of modifications to the internal systems and exterior materials, testing changes on replicas to ensure that the machine still worked, that the cabin remained sealed, that the craft moved through time and space as programmed. They’d added a scutarium encased glove in the dash of the main machine; Adam would spend time recharging the batteries in 2030 while Angel and Fil completed their tasks.

This test machine was different. It was comprised entirely of nanos, designed to dissolve into microscopic pieces one minute after the successful completion of the trip.

Charlie watched as the Mechanic stepped back. “This craft will dissolve one minute after it arrives in the past. We’re programming Will’s time machine to dissolve three minutes after he opens then cabin, correct?”

The Mechanic nodded. “We don’t know how long Will remained in the cabin when he arrived in the distant past. That seems the best approach.”

Angel, Fil, and Adam entered the building. “I take it everything’s ready to go, then?” Angel asked.

The Mechanic nodded. “Angel, I think you should have the honor of starting this one, after all, you’re the one who realized the necessity of sending a temporary craft decades back in time for testing purposes.”

“I agree,” Fil said.

The Mechanic handed the remote to Angel. “When you’re ready.”

Angel nodded, counted down from three, and pressed the button.

The lid appeared over the cabin compartment. They listened to the now familiar sound of the time circuits warming up and drawing the necessary energy in from the battery. The hum grew louder, sounding like an old-fashioned propeller airplane hurtling down a runway for takeoff.

After ten seconds, the time machine vanished.

“How will we know if it worked?” Fil asked.

“We already do,” Charlie replied. “Remember? We were there in the past when that machine craft appeared.” He smiled at Angel. “Somebody realized this needed to be done.”

Angel blushed a bit. “Everyone else would have realized it eventually.”

Charlie took her hand. “But only you did.”

Fil coughed loudly. “The sentimentality is touching, but we still have quite a bit of work to do here today. Shall we get started?”

Angel glared at Fil, and Charlie rolled his eyes. They left the Mechanic’s quarters and walked outside into the camp.

They’d set up the site two months earlier, a year before Will’s scheduled arrival. The message in Will’s memories was clear: he believed that the nomad-like existence was their permanent reality, that their numbers after years of Hunts had waned so low that those in the camp might represent the entire global Alliance population. In setting up the camp a year in advance, in limiting their contact to other Alliance to an absolute minimum, they hoped to believe that reality themselves and act accordingly when their guest arrived from two centuries in their past.

The clear blue skies and fresh air aided conversation and strategy. The time machine was stored inside the Mechanic’s quarters; they didn’t want to take the chance at this point that inclement weather would damage a machine decades in the making. Charlie had noted that everybody in the camp—including him—had access to the machine, and asked what would happen if anyone other than Adam, Fil, or Angel activated the time machine.

“We need a lock on the time machine and a key that only the three of us can activate,” Adam said.

“Nobody would actually activate the machine, would they?” Fil was skeptical. “Everyone here knows the criticality of this machine and the upcoming trip. Why would they jeopardize everything?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “But everyone will want to look at it. And that means someone could take a quick peek inside, and…” He shrugged. “I know it’s stupid, but we’ve been thinking about contingencies for so long I see them everywhere.”

Angel snapped her fingers as understanding dawned. “You’re right, Charlie. Nobody would do it on purpose. I’m not sure anybody here would activate it, even get close enough to trigger the machine by accident. But telling the time machine it can only activate if one of us push the button? That seems like a good idea.”

The Mechanic stroked his chin. “I suppose we can use the same technology used by the nanos to identify those who can operate the machine.”

Angel shook her head. “No. Well, we could. But I think this is the reasoning behind one of the curious items from Dad’s memory.”

The Mechanic stopped moving. “Which memory?”

“The tattoos on our palms. The Alliance symbol in gold on our palms.”

“What does a tattoo… oh, I get it,” Fil said, nodding. “The tattoos for us are… well, they’re keys to activate the craft. Nobody else gets a tattoo.”

“I don’t like that,” Adam said. Will is going to notice if only three of us bear a mark that’s supposedly something common to our entire membership.”

“Your tattoos will be created from specialized ink,” the Mechanic said. “The rest of us will get identical tattoos that are purely cosmetic.”

“Now
that
I like,” Adam replied, smoothing a wrinkle in his pale green bodysuit. Nano-based clothing sensitive to Energy levels had become commonplace with the advent of problem-solving nanos. Angel’s clothing was a deep green, Fil’s black, and the Mechanic’s orange.

Fil looked up at the sky. “Anybody think we’ll do one of the drills today?”

Angel scowled. “I
really
hope not.”

They’d prepared for the Aliomenti invasion of 2219 by practicing evacuating the current camp and traveling to the next. The earliest attempts were farces that invoked laughter. They’d gotten proficient over time, then added a siren to camp that sounded at random intervals. Everyone thought this a great idea until the first time the siren sounded at three in the morning.

“No chance any of the Hunters is out of bed at three in the morning,” Charlie had grumbled.

At least during that test run she and Charlie had shared a home, Angel thought. Will’s memories had her bunking with Fil, and no indication of her involvement with anyone in the camp. They’d seen images of Charlie and the others in the camp, though, and knew who was to be present. Just not present with
her.

Fil found the living arrangements amusing.

They reached another nano-based structure—in this case a meeting room—and melted through the walls. Angel remembered the first time she’d used one of these buildings. She’d spent nearly two centuries entering buildings via using doors or teleportation. This approach effectively merged the two. She understood why her father would find the practice so disconcerting after his arrival from door-centric 2030.

The meeting room was a far cry from the room Will Stark would call home the following year. They’d set the nanos to change their color from the clear white familiar to Will, to a textured image. Where Will’s room housed nothing but a bed, this room featured tables, chairs, charts, video discs, paper flow charts hung on the walls. They’d reviewed each item a dozen times, ensuring they knew exactly how to act and the messages they must convey. They knew they didn’t need to say anything with the exact wording; Will would see in them actors reciting a script. They needed to
be
those people, understanding the messages more than precise verbiage.

“Let’s talk about the first steps to take after the return,” the Mechanic said as they sat in the chairs scattered around the room. As one not traveling through time, the Mechanic was an obvious choice to keep them on task and focused. He’d also reviewed more video than anyone else.

“Right,” Angel replied. “After we successfully retrieve Dad… Will…” She grimaced in frustration. “I can see why I’m supposed to call him Mr. Stark. I can’t get this right. Okay. I’ll practice that.” She cleared her throat. “After we successfully retrieve
Mr. Stark
—” Fil clapped politely, drawing a glare from his sister “—he’ll be in a delicate physical condition. We’ll give him the sleeping mix in the time machine.” She nodded at a bottle of liquid on the table, labeled “Sleep.” “That will go in my bag for the trip. That gets us about twenty-four hours to get things started upon our return to our present.”

Adam nodded. “We’ll use that opportunity to handle a few key tasks. I think we can preemptively inject the healing nanos. His injuries look quite severe in the video and we don’t want to risk permanent damage. I’d rather he healed too quickly than too slowly.” He sighed. “We’ve made a point of saying that we want him to feel the injuries when he wakes up the first time. Maybe we have to inject something that increases the amount of pain felt even as his body heals.”

“Adam, you’ve mentioned other work we’ll need to do in that first twenty-four hours while the patient sleeps and recovers. Can you elaborate?” The Mechanic lounged in a comfortable chair, hands clasped behind his head, with his eyes closed. Angel knew that posture. With his eyes closed, the Mechanic was focusing all mental energy on listening, tuning out visual distractions.

Adam nodded once more. “I talked to Dad and to Eva about their first encounters with Will in the distant past, asked them what they remember. Dad thought Will recognized him, a reaction he forgot until Will clued him in on his future birth. But Eva? She said Will clearly had no idea who she was. How is that possible? Eva in Pleasanton looked like Eva in the North Village, just with more wrinkles. How does Will not recognize her when they meet in the past?”

Angel felt a chill as the implication of his words hit her. “He didn’t recognize anyone here now, either. Remember? Nothing in his memory suggested he recognized Eva in the twenty-third century any more than he did in the eleventh or twenty-first. Which can only mean…”

“Either Dad’s memory is horrible or we block his memory of people he’s met in different times.” Fil’s face was stoic. He’d realized what they needed to do as well.

“It will be a tricky process,” Adam said. “While Will sleeps, we’ll need to make him forget anyone he knew in 2030, so that we seem like new, fresh faces here in his future. But that’s the easy part.”

The Mechanic’s face was stony. “You’ll need to do the same thing just before he departs for the distant past as well. Make him forget Eva. Make him forget that his old security chief’s surname, Maynard, is the name of Arthur Lowell’s muscle in the North Village.”

Adam sighed. “I hate this. I truly do. We did the same thing for Hope in 2030, but she consented to the process. With Will, we won’t have that opportunity. We have to figure out a different approach, because if any of us starts trying to alter his memories after he’s been in the future for two months…”

“He’d know.” The Mechanic stroked his chin. “I agree that this is distasteful. But I also agree that it is a necessary action on our part. As to the problem of recognition of our efforts by a trained-up Will, I believe we can overcome that by setting mental triggers to block his memories just before he leaves this time.”

Fil looked intrigued. “How would that work?”

“We can only safely work on Will’s memories at the time of his arrival in his future. After that, he’ll be too Energy aware and we run the risk of being caught. Therefore, we have to build in the blocks in that first twenty-four hour window, and tell his mind to forget only when a future event happens.” He chewed his bottom lip for a moment. “Those triggers must fire as near to the moment he leaves as possible. We need to find something unique in those final minutes, something we wouldn’t possibly say or do until those final minutes.”

“That makes sense,” Angel said. Her tone was slow, doubtful. “It can’t be a single word, though. I doubt there’s a word spoken when that final departure sequence unfolds that isn’t spoken many times before that.”

“I agree; it can’t be a single word.” The Mechanic stood and began pacing the room. “I wonder if we can use nanos to aid in this process?”

“But nanos can’t alter the mind… can they?” Adam looked concerned.

“We’ve done a great deal of work with nanos interfacing directly with the mind,” the Mechanic said. “Think of the communication nanos all of us use each day. Think about the interfaces we built into the mind to record video and audio from memories. The nanos sent to the Aliomenti prison that showed the teleportation target in the minds of those freed.” He stopped walking and looked at them. “More to the point, isn’t there a sequence in which the Assassin reveals that someone in our camp altered him to work on our behalf, including aiding Will Stark’s escape from Aliomenti Headquarters?”

Adam nodded. “You’re right; I do remember that. And there was something in the conversation that Will and I had—will have—about what our nanos are, what they can, and the fact that at least one of our number had worked on ways to use them to alter the human brain.” He chuckled. “Another message we left for ourselves?”

“So it would seem,” Angel said. “I’m still not sure how we can build triggers to block a memory that Da—Mr. Stark won’t have until
after
we need to set up the trigger.”

“The mechanics are unclear to me,” Adam said. “But I think the trigger should be the time machine lid snapping opaque. When that happens, Will’s definitely leaving us.”