The Traveler

EPILOGUE DISCLOSURE

Virginia and the newly demoted Carl Everett, wearing his old silver eagles of a captain on his blue jumpsuit, waited by the cargo elevator descending from gate number one. The giant lift slowly slid down to level five and then stopped. The two exchanged looks as the doors slid open.

Niles Compton and Jack Collins stood and waited for the Secret Service team to step out. They were immediately joined by the President of the United States.

“Captain, I am truly happy to see you again,” he said as he released the captain’s hand and then turned to look at Compton and Collins. “Shall we proceed?”

Virginia gestured for the president to follow them. Carl was formal as he greeted Jack and Niles, but they all soon fell into step behind the assistant director and their boss. They made their way to one of the interior elevator banks and entered the air-cushioned ride. The doors closed and the car remained silent as it descended into the most secure facility in the world.

“Dr. Pollock, I assume you received my approval for the replacement personnel for the Group?”

“Yes, sir, we did.”

The president waited for the assistant director to expand on her answer but there was nothing forthcoming. They soon found themselves inside the large conference room.

After coffee had been served and the small party was alone he half turned to Compton next to him.

“This Wellsian Doorway, you refuse to turn it over to my people.”

“That isn’t true. The doorway was destroyed and we cannot recover it nor reengineer the science.”

The president slapped his hand on the tabletop in frustration, knowing his friend was lying to him.

“The technology can never get out in the open. We have seen firsthand how greed takes over common sense. The doorway’s destruction was a godsend, because we were tempted to use it for what we thought was right. We have friends that we lost in that damn alien war and we wanted to get them back and had the means to do so. But when we start changing what was meant to be, we start dismantling who we really are. Without the pain of loss there is no commitment to be better than what we ever could be.”

“Yet you saved Captain Everett from his fate.”

This time it was Niles who slapped the tabletop and leaned forward even farther.

“We went and retrieved a man we sent off knowing he was not going to come back. We, you and I. We could have changed his destiny by not allowing him to go, but we decided we didn’t have that right to change what we knew was meant to happen. We adjusted that way of thinking by using the doorway to correct that decision.”

Niles stood with the assistance of Jack, who was very proud to know the man who faced down the president. Both men limped as Niles spoke.

“I have known you all of my adult life and I love you like a brother, but I cannot allow you to shame yourself by bending to the very temptations that you yourself despised about the big office before becoming the president. Your handling of Overlord was the greatest achievement ever conducted through the office of the presidency, ranked only with Lincoln and Roosevelt. No, you are better than that. We always play by the rules, we are the good guys. Remember saying that to me?”

The president sat stock-still. “The Constitution, Niles, we evaded the Constitution in not informing Congress what we were up to.”

“When I heard you on television that you were caving into the men that scare this nation on a daily basis because it helps keep us alert through fear, I knew that it wasn’t you talking. It was that injured man at Camp David. The man that lost friends and sent boys off to a fate that you knew they were not coming back from.”

“That’s what happens to soldiers, Niles.”

“My people are not soldiers for the most part, but they died anyway. It doesn’t matter to me if my people wear a lab coat or a uniform, they are mine. They are also yours, and now I think you need to meet a few of them as you never have before.”

Niles and Virginia walked to the door and Jack waited for the president to rise from his chair. He buttoned his coat and reluctantly followed Compton to the large cafeteria. They entered and the president saw that the entire Department 5656 was present. They were silent as the four strode into the room and seated themselves in the back.

“What is this?” the president asked Compton.

“This is the Group’s way of saying good-bye to our friends. We wanted to wait for the memorial until we recovered Captain Everett. Charlie Ellenshaw organized it.”

The president blinked when he saw the pictures on easels at the front of the cafeteria. The president closed his eyes at the soft refrain of Mama Cass Elliot as she sang the slow ballad, “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”

The president recognized far too many of the young faces in the blown-up photos. They lined the far wall on both sides and went all of the way to the front. Two hundred photos in all. He blinked when he saw the pictures of a scowling Garrison Lee, a smiling Matchstick, and Gus Tilly, Pete Golding, and Denise Gilliam and the many other military and civilian techs lost in Event Group field actions. He swallowed hard as Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III stood and made his way sadly to the front. He placed a hand on the portrait of Pete and stood for the longest time until a wheelchair-bound man approached and tugged on Charlie’s lab coat. The professor looked down and saw that it was Xavier Morales, the man who replaced Golding. They both nodded and then slowly left the crowded cafeteria.

As they sat long enough to see everyone slowly file out, the president nodded at Sarah McIntire, Jason Ryan, Will Mendenhall, Carl Everett, Anya Korvesky, and finally Alice Hamilton. They all just nodded as they passed by and the president felt he had no right to meet their eyes. Soon they found themselves alone. Only Virginia, Jack, and Niles waited.

Finally the president stood and buttoned his coat again, reached for his own crutch, and nodded his head at the three.

“That was low, Niles.”

“Yes, I believe it was. Cold. But you have to put the names to the faces, Jim. The soldiers and sailors of the nations that fought in that war are honored in public, but these people are anonymous. No one knows they ever existed and died for their world, their country, knowing that no matter what they did, no one would ever know about it. No one says thank you, no one can even mourn them because of who and what we do. If we do anything to change that and become just another tool for men to keep and hold power, what are we? Technology such as the Wellsian Doorway can never be controlled by men in power, even you, sir. Sometimes, as you once told me not long ago, we have to give the damn Constitution a rest.”

“Sometimes we in power become blinded by the need to protect those who can’t do it themselves.” The president lowered his head.

Niles and the others nodded at the man who had just been forced to look into the mirror and didn’t like the face of the man who looked back. Compton could never allow the Event Group to become the personal pawn of the presidency. Technology had to be controlled. He knew the president’s approval of the mission had been based on discovering time travel that could be used for the betterment of the United States, but Niles was smart enough to know that tech like the doorway was nothing more than what the Nazis had invented it for — that of greed and power. He had to protect his friend.

“That’s why you need people like these,” Niles said as he gestured sadly at all of his dead people memorialized in frames. “Mr. President, they can help you in protecting those that can’t do it themselves, but we have to do it legally and aboveboard. These people, and many more thousands just like them, are your technology. Trust them, they do rather well when called upon.”

The president looked down at his friend and nodded. “I hate it when you become my conscience, Baldy. You’re brutal, even more so than my wife.”

“Well, as Alice will tell you, I have the very same shortcomings myself.”

“Speaking of which, does that old woman still have the key to Lee’s wet bar?”

Jack took out a key and tossed it to Niles.

“No, but I do. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink,” Niles said as he turned and faced Jack and Virginia. “Join us?”

Virginia smiled and claimed she had never in her life turned down a free drink. She joined the trio.

“Jack?” the president asked, hoping the colonel would join them.

“I’m afraid I have something I have to take care of, Mr. President,” he said, and left the empty cafeteria.

Collins found himself alone on level seventy-two. He waited with the electric truck brimming full with Styrofoam-packaged materials. Finally Sarah showed up. She kissed him, knowing there were no cameras down here and not even Europa could spy on them.

“Ready to see the real wonderland?” he asked.

“I am surely not cleared for this level,” she said nervously. Jack only smiled.

Level seventy-two was the deepest level of the Event Group facility, the very farthest level from the top. It was the only level to house vaults that no one, not even the highest-ranking department heads, knew about. The black files were kept here and as Jack smiled he slowly pushed the crated material in and gestured for Sarah to follow. They deposited the Wellsian Doorway into the vault area. Jack explained that he just had to allow Sarah to see the strange items inside that would never, ever be exposed to the outside world. After an hour Sarah left the newly discovered level with her face showing the shock of what the Event Group had discovered throughout its long history — items that were so dangerous to the human race’s existence that the level would never be visited by even those in power. After smiling at Sarah’s shock, he then closed the heavy door and sealed it with his security badge. He turned and whistled as he and Sarah left the only operational time machine in the world, locked away from the greed of men.

Sometimes, as Jack and Niles had agreed upon, you had to give the United States Constitution a rest, just as the president had said those many years ago.

It was two weeks later when Jack, Carl, Sarah, and Anya stood inside the luxurious foyer of the expensive apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. As they waited they saw the many pictures on the wall of students long since gone but raising families of their own.

Moira Mendelsohn wheeled herself into the foyer and smiled as she greeted the guests she hadn’t seen since she had been whisked away by Group security before the federal authorities arrived in force at the navy yard.

“It’s so good to see you again,” she said as she accepted the hugs from her new friends, the people who knew how to keep secrets.

“We thought we would stop in and see how you are doing, Professor,” Jack said as he studied the picture of a young child on the wall. He turned with a questioning look. “Boy, there’s a resemblance there, isn’t there?” Jack said.

“Oh, yes. That’s my brother. It was taken three days before our family was rounded up in Poland,” she said with a sad look on her face.

“The boy you failed to find in all of your time travels?” Sarah asked as she joined Jack by the wall.

“Yes, I failed to save the one person that all of that was built for.”

Jack nodded at Carl and Anya, who stepped over to the front doors of the apartment and waited.

“Madam, on behalf of our Group, we would like to say thank you for everything that you did. As you know we have a computing system that basically has a mind of her own.”

“Oh, yes, that wonderful Europa. I realized that she wasn’t your typical laptop.” She smiled.

“Well, she’s damn good at digging. She found an older gentleman who lives in Battle Creek, Michigan, of all places.” Jack nodded that the doors should be opened. “Moira, you failed to find your brother because he was never in Germany after that night. Well, as you know we had that little mishap with the Russians and sent them back to Germany, where it is obvious they met a well-deserved fate. According to Master Chief Jenks and Virginia we screwed up the time line but good. We brought you the results of that screwup. It seems your brother in all of the confusion escaped Europe and made his way across the border, where a French family sheltered him until the war’s end. He immigrated to the United States in 1949 and became a citizen two years after that. His name is Peter Chumskey.”

Carl and Anya gestured that the man should enter.

Moira’s eyes widened as she recognized a boy in a man’s body. She started crying and Sarah and Anya could not help but follow suit. The old and tired man rushed to the wheelchair-bound Moira and collapsed at her feet and hugged her legs.

Jack nodded at the others and they quietly left the apartment as the two siblings learned how love spanned even the ravages of time.

The Traveler and her only living relative were finally home.