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  As I drove up the ramp into the bright sunlight from the underground parking structure, I looked around the compound for other traffic. It was still too early for the evening exodus, and only a few vehicles were visible, all of them originating from one of the other buildings. There were nine structures scattered around the grounds, all within the eight-foot stone wall fencing and secured by a guarded entrance at the West End. Aero Technologies was a relatively new company, and not large enough to command an infrastructure as large as this. The complex represented a relatively new concept for the area, supporting smaller companies by renting them office and laboratory space inside a state of the art secure perimeter maintained by the owner of the complex. Eight companies currently occupied the nine independent office structures, and shared the costs of supporting the maintenance and security. Aero was housed in one of the larger of the buildings, which came in three sizes. Just last summer the company had moved from the currently vacant building into the larger facility, necessary to house the growing ranks required by the expanding business currently enjoyed by the industry and Aero in particular. It was a cost effective arrangement for a company that dealt with highly classified government projects and required upgraded security, but hadn’t the size as yet to support the cost on its own. I had heard that a new software start-up would be moving into the vacated building sometime in the next quarter. I guess that industry desired as much security as any government program, perhaps more.

  My own company, at least the one I shared with Carol, provides its own security. We founded Epoch Engineering for a specific purpose. Against our expectations, it has grown more than we anticipated. Now, the original purpose is known only by a small select group of the staff, and we carefully keep the special activities separate from the daily activities supported by the majority of the employees. Having a formal security group might help in some ways, but would make it difficult for some of our people to come and go unnoticed. Besides, we have an advantage people don’t anticipate.

  The X5 BMW purred as I drove towards the entrance at a modest pace. I slowed a bit as I approached the guard shack, but their focus was generally on keeping outsiders out, rather than monitoring the departing traffic. The guard was just picking up the phone and he waived absently as I drove past him. Was the call from Dan relating to my departure? It didn’t really matter. I was already through onto the main road and accelerating towards town. I was still pondering my options as the big engine smoothly accelerated the X5 up to 75 mph. It was early and there was little advantage to heading home. My wife Naiya was far downtime this week so I couldn’t share the events with her, and I couldn’t talk with Carol until later. I passed the tree-lined frontage to the complex. Lots of evergreen trees of various varieties, although some oak and maple as well. The brush at the base of the wall was mostly burning bush, the leaves a light green this early in the spring, which would turn to a fire red color come fall.

  I slipped my cell from my pocket as I drove. Traffic was still light as I made my call to Carol’s answering machine, driving and talking at the same time, a practice that I normally detest. I assumed the call could be monitored, but this call I didn’t care. “Carol, it’s Jim. Welcome back. I’d like to meet with you first thing in the morning, your office. I had a very weird visit today from some gentlemen from Washington. At least I suspect that is where their home office is. They were shy about identifying themselves. They have a mystery on their hands regarding our old rival Kurt Morris and of all things an old gun of mine that went missing many years ago. I lost it even before we met. Somehow, it seems, Morris found the damn thing. I’m not sure about what this all means, but they left indicating their expectations of further questions of our people, you and me especially. Nothing else important has happened while you were gone. I’m headed home early and probably will stop somewhere for dinner as Naiya is still out of town.”

  I thumbed the disconnect and put the phone away. Nothing in that call anyone could question, but Carol, more correctly Karole, would trigger on the lost gun issue immediately. She had helped me search for the damn thing after helping me clean up the mess resulting from the disastrous trip downtime so many years ago. After saving my life, of course. We had more history together than was generally known.

  Although it was early, traffic was already heavy as I headed away from Seattle towards Tacoma. I wondered, not for the first time, what kind of jobs people must have to allow them to head home this early every day. I initially thought about heading to one of my favorite local pubs for an early drink and dinner, but then decided against it. I started thinking about the visit today, and wondered how serious these people were. Were they watching me, tailing me even now to see where I would go and whom I might talk with? If so, why go where they might later hassle people I know and liked. Someplace with no previous history would be best. How about my calls? Were they being monitored? I had started acting as if they might be. I wondered if they had attempted to place a bug in the car or my house. Maybe a tracking device? They would be surprised if they had. I wanted to look around, but that would be stupid. There is no way I would learn anything by trying. This was something they were skilled at, and we were not. Still, Carol’s gadgets from uptime would make things hard for them, assuming it was even necessary.

  Traffic was really slowing now. I settled back into the quiet luxury of the BMW. I had purchased the X5 last November when the new models came out. This one was a Toledo Blue, the color on the first car the dealer received. I didn’t worry about such things much, and took whatever came. My wife had tired of my selection of pickups, SUVs, and tiny two-seater sports cars, even though she still wouldn’t consider driving. Cars were unknown in her time, but she still wanted something more stylish. I think Carol put her up to it. It cost far more than any car I had ever owned, but the agents were right in one comment they had made. Money was no longer an issue for me. The loss of my family had truly been an accident, although a freakish occurrence that I still wondered about. Their deaths had left me the sole inheritor of an estate worth a couple of million dollars over a decade ago. The 6500 square foot house in Renton on several acres of desirable land, plus property scattered around the state and a large portfolio meant I was set for life. And I had added to it, significantly.

  When I discovered the tunnel that lead forty plus years uptime, I wondered if I could use it to my advantage. Besides, it would be a kind of proof that what I was seeing was real. It was risky, and it was stupid, but the whole time complex discovery was new and I still considered it my private toy. Years before a friend had always joked that for an investment guide he wanted a subscription to next year’s paper. Well, with access to the time device I now had just that. Not only the next years paper, but the next forty-five years or so. Sadly, most of the information wouldn’t be too useful. Who wants to wait forty years for the payoff?

  It took more than a week sneaking around uptime. Part of the problem was that this particular uptime outlet was in Spain, I still don’t have a clue why. Spanish was still a language I could get by in and it had only changed in a direction that worked in my favor. It now contained almost as many English words as Spanish. The English controlled media had had a significant impact on language the world over, and even the slippage of the American system to a second rate power in those future years, hadn’t changed the impact of the American culture. Money then was mostly electronic, and I didn’t know how any of the systems worked and feared bringing attention to myself trying to learn. Fortunately, there were places for young tourists with free room and board, available for a couple of nights. Moving around from hostel to hostel allowed me the time needed to complete my research without drawing undue attention.

  A current local paper wouldn’t do, of course. The current paper would address the local markets and current market events, perhaps with information dating back a year. I needed a library that would allow me to check historical data. Public information was still an important function and I found that once one learned how
to use the equipment, everything was available on-line. It took several false starts and a helpful librarian, but soon I was comfortable with the system. It didn’t take long to see that computers, the internet, and software companies would grow at an unprecedented rate in the 1990s. I even knew when some of the significant ups and downs would occur. I documented several companies and key dates, and returned home.

  Acting against the advice of the family money managers, I took half of the funds away from them and had them placed in a trading account I alone controlled. Within a year I had more than quadrupled my portfolio. Only the insane profits people were making in other trading prevented my successes from bringing too much attention my way. Another year and I had once again doubled my already swelling account balance. I was starting to lose interest in the money game once I knew what was possible and as I continued to explore up and down time. Carol put a final stop to my investment activities when we allied together.

  It suddenly annoyed me that they had grouped the accident that killed my family with the other losses they knew about. The agents would have been surprised to learn there were a number of others. Pulled out of my daydreaming and back to the present, I looked at the slow moving traffic that extended as far as I could see. The next off ramp sported a mall and a number of food chain outlets. I saw the distinctive sign for an Outback, and decided that would have to do. I started working my way over to the right hand side to exit.

  Inside the Outback restaurant with its familiar layout, I was seated immediately. The crowd hadn’t started to come in yet. My waiter, sharp as a tack who remembered everything I ordered without needing to write things down, was back quickly with the rum and coke ensuring a large tip from me, and then headed off to place my order. I selected my regular, their filet steak, the larger serving of course, and veggies. I wanted rice, but that’s one thing the restaurant seemed to have trouble with. I went with the garlic potatoes, and sat back with my drink to think about where things might be headed. Would we have to shift our base of operations uptime? None of us wanted to do that. Except maybe Carol. By the time my order had arrived and I was enjoying another perfect steak, my thoughts had wandered back to when Carol had found me.

  Chapter 5

  Time and Location Unknown

  What I thought was a rock under my left side was really driving me crazy. I rolled over in an attempt to dislodge it from under my sleeping bag when everything suddenly came back to me. Oh shit, I thought. Pat and Lisa. My eyes popped open, absently noting but not yet registering that I was no longer inside the time complex. I reached down gingerly to feel my side expecting to find the blood still leaking from the wound I had received earlier. I was surprised not to find my blood soaked shirt but some smooth, almost silky, green colored material that clung to my body and hung to mid thigh. A pair of pants of similar material completed my attire; my dirty and bloody jeans and T-shirt were nowhere to be seen. I pulled up the shirt, if that’s what it was, feeling a strange resistance, which relaxed as the shirt pulled away from my side. I reached down and felt. Smooth? No wound! I pulled at the shirt and lifted it up higher and looked. My left front was bruised but whole. It was painful to twist enough to see down my left side and part of the back. It also was badly bruised, but again felt whole. I lay back, confused, and suddenly exhausted. How? I wondered.

  As I lay there, I began to notice more about my surroundings. I was back in a cave again, but one I had never seen before. At least I didn’t think so. It didn’t look like one of the entrance caves to the device, and I had been in them all more than once. The cave was perhaps one hundred feet long and forty wide, with a ceiling some fifteen feet on the average, although irregular. Sometimes it dipped down as low as ten feet while in other places it rose perhaps thirty or forty feet above the floor. The floor was surprisingly smooth, and of some form of rock, maybe limestone. There looked to be entrances at both ends, although the way the walls turned and hid the view, it could have equally well have turned into rock wall and a dead end. Nowhere could I see outside, so I had no idea whether it was day or night. The area was comfortably warm and something was providing light, but for the moment I couldn’t see the source.

  “Someone found me,” I muttered to myself. My deductive powers are really coming back, I thought wryly. I looked down at what I initially thought was my sleeping bag. I was lying on the floor of the cave on a thin gray mat. It couldn’t have been more than an inch thick, but felt as supportive and comfortable as my oversized mattress at home. I couldn’t feel the floor of the cave through it at all. There were other oddities as well. Not far from me were a variety of odd looking instruments, shiny but not looking metallic. More like some form of plastic. Somehow though, they appeared to be very solid. Stronger even than their metal counterparts would be. Across the room were piles of odd colored boxes, what might have been cooking equipment, a more substantial looking bed, and enough electronics gear to have filled a fair sized lab. Not all of it appeared to be set-up, looking more like it was simply stacked in a convenient spot for some planned future use. What looked to be some form of computer was clearly up and running, with what appeared to be a view of a stone wall. A flash of inspiration hit and I guessed that it was looking at the time tunnel entrance to this era, wherever I was. It was not active at the moment, so only the blank cave wall was shown.

  All this hard detective work had made me tired. Despite an urgent need for answers and the desire to escape from wherever I might be, I knew I wouldn’t get ten feet from where I lay. Besides, I wasn’t going through the time complex, assuming it was anywhere handy. The small metallic square which had hung around my neck for the past two years and as acted as the key to open the tunnel entrances was gone. My exploring days appeared to be finished. When-ever I was, it appeared I was here to stay, assuming whoever or whatever had found me elected to let me live. I couldn’t imagine them going to the trouble to heal me and then kill me, but perhaps it had been necessary to enable them to get whatever information they sought from me. A number of unpleasant possibilities flashed through my mind. I think I watched too many movies as a kid.

  With a sigh I lay back and closed my eyes. I was physically spent, and at an emotional low. The loss of my friends washed over me, and the sense of helplessness I felt grew even stronger. There was nothing I could do for them. As I had tried to explain to Lisa, time in the various eras visited by the machine moved only forward. There was no way I could go back and undo the events of the past days. I could go back a thousand years before it all happened, but that wasn’t going to help them. I wondered how I could have done it all differently, and what I would do about them if I ever got back home.

  Eventually I must have slept. I don’t know for how long, but now I became aware that someone was in the cave with me. Soft movements could be heard toward the far side of the stone room; studied movements that would be associated with deliberate purposeful activity. It wasn’t some wild animal that had found it’s way into my sanctuary. My savior then? I was almost afraid to look. Just as I started to open my eyes, I sensed movement in my direction. Trying to look asleep, I relaxed and waited to see what would happen. I wasn’t going anywhere no matter how badly I wanted to. I could sense a body come up behind me and stand close by, and then hear it move to the other side of my ‘bed’ where the odd assortment of gadgets were arranged.

  Slowly, heart thumping, I opened my eyelids just enough to get a first look. A lot depended on what I would see. The lighting hadn’t changed, but it was bright enough to see all I needed. A humanoid figure bent over the table about five feet away, looking the other way. Just slightly smaller than me, and clearly female. But an alien! That’s it, I thought. The ‘Builders’ have found me! The hair was cut short, but was a bright silver color. Not white, silver! The skin where exposed was a smooth rich blue color. Everywhere. Right up and into the silver hair. I noted the fingernails on the one hand I could see were silver colored and matched the hair. The being wore clothing that seemed be a darker versio
n of the clingy material I was wearing, consisting of pants that went from hips to ankles, and a blouse that left about five inches of bare midriff. I couldn’t see what she wore on her feet. But so human like. The curves and shape were those of a very nicely proportioned human female.

  “I know you are awake,” she said suddenly.

  I gasped at the unexpected use of English. The accent was weird, and it took a moment to process the words, but she was obviously speaking my native language. Somehow she seemed at home with the language, as if it was native to her as well, although I couldn’t see how that would be. Then suddenly she turned towards me.

  I don’t know what I expected, but she was beautiful. The face went with the rest of her well-developed form, but appeared a lot younger than I would have expected. She looked to be in her mid twenties, although the bluish skin made it hard to be sure. Her eyes were a lighter blue than her skin, and were focused intently on me. Unexpectedly she was smiling. I found I liked her smile.

  “It appears you are going to make it after all,” she said, again in that strangely accented English. “Your chances were not good when I found you and it took longer than I hoped to get the medicines to cure you. You won’t be going anywhere for a few days, but now that you can take in solid food rather than the synthetic liquids I have been feeding your body, the micro-meds will have you repaired very quickly. You are lucky to be young and healthy, if a bit stupid,” she finished.