Jim found it hard to grasp the fact that the child he saw walking down the street could have, at some point in in the future, held down a job or been somebody’s lover. They had attended school, college. Grown up, married, had perhaps even raised, and now lost, a child of their own. They had experienced everything that differentiates most adults from the child they used to be.
And now, here they were again; trapped in a child’s body, with all of the associated problems that brought. It must have been torturous in those first few months for them.
The exogenous children of the United States handled this most unexpected regression with varying degrees of adjustment. Some tried to make their way on their own, attempting to reacquire jobs they had held when they were adults, but that was difficult because most adults had an ingrained attitude toward children. Jim had read reports in several newspapers of attempts at organizing a child labor union. Others had grabbed eagerly at the chance to be a kid once more; throwing themselves completely into experiencing their childhood over again. Some went back to school (though not many), they played with toys, made friends, climbed trees, scuffed their knees, and enjoyed a second chance at life. Most however just accepted the fact they would have to once more rely upon their parents until they were of a sufficient age where they could step back out into the adult world.
Of course, not all the children were ex-adults; some had died before they left childhood. And it was these kids that Jim had the hardest time accepting. It meant that Lark had also had a second chance at life, only to have it torn from her again. It meant that he, her father, had failed her for a second time. It was a failure that tore at his heart every time he saw a child of Lark’s age.
Professor Adrianna Drake did not fall into any of these categories, Jim thought. He could see intensity behind her eyes, and a drive that was motivated by some source he suspected even she did not truly understand.
“I’m very pleased to meet you Doctor Baston,” the diminutive scientists announced before Jim could say anything.
“Don’t be put off by Adrianna’s… appearance,” Lorentz chimed in. “The professor probably knows more about this project than the entire team put together. If it had not been for her brilliant work we could not have succeeded in our original experiment.”
“And that would have been a bad thing because…?” said Adrianna with a sarcastic smile.
Twenty-Three
“Welcome,” began Lorentz, resting both of his hands flat against the surface of the conference table. “Thank you all for attending. I’m sure that our two newest members are wondering exactly what they are doing here, and why they were chosen to join our little team. And I’ll get to that in just a moment. But first, I must apologize to you both for the cloak-and—dagger tactics we employed to get you here. As you are about to find out, I was forced not to reveal any of the information you are going to hear before I was absolutely certain that you would attend this meeting.”
Lorentz remained still for a moment, gathering his thoughts and inhaling deeply before he resumed his oratory.
“I am responsible for the Slip,” he admitted bluntly, a hint of unease in his voice. “I know Adrianna will tell you otherwise—that the team I assembled to work on the project that caused this calamity shared equally in the blame—but I was the instigator, and I must place the blame firmly and completely on my shoulders.”
There was a stunned silence from Jim and Rebecca.
“Approximately twenty-five years from now, in a government funded laboratory in Southern California, I will assemble a team of some of the most brilliant young scientists this country will have to offer. A team of whom Adrianna is the sole survivor, by virtue of the fact that she was my eldest recruit. We were—will be—contracted to work on a secret government project that would revolutionize communications between military Command and Control Centers and their units in the field.
“This project involved the sending and receiving of messages and signals using tachyons as opposed to regular radiotelegraphy. Project Tach-Comm as we called it, was supposed to eliminate the need for encryption of messages and make the use of radio networks and systems, as we knew them, obsolete. How? By virtue of the fact that, given the innate nature of tachyons to travel backward through time, any message sent from our transmitter would effectively be received by the message’s recipient before it was even sent. It would guarantee that only the unit in possession of the receiver would be able to receive the transmission—a guarantee which the military were more than eager to obtain at the earliest opportunity.”
“You built Dirac’s radio?” said Jim incredulously.
“Essentially, yes. But we had no intention of communicating through time per se, although, theoretically speaking, we knew the message would actually be received only seconds before it was sent. The real goal was to utilize that effect to create an unbreakable, uninterruptable communication device; the likes of which the world had never known.”
In 1938, Paul Dirac, a Nobel laureate, had devised a theory that allowed for the possibility of backward transmission of radio waves through time without the possibility of creating a causal loop. If correct, his theory meant that a radio transmitter could be constructed that would allow the future to speak with the past.
“As you may have guessed our first major test of this new technology took place on New Year’s day of 2042. The unexpected consequence of that experiment was the Slip. Like everyone else I was left confused and stunned by the event, but over time, as I managed to analyze exactly what had happened, I became convinced that my experiment was to blame. I was lucky enough to have contacts within the government in this time, and I convinced them that my experiment—Project Tach-Comm—was the catalyst for the Slip. I also believed that I could reverse the effects and, thankfully, the government was willing to believe I could too.
“I say ‘thankfully’ because if we had not been given the opportunity to study the effect, we would not have learned that the consequences of the Slip were far greater than we first believed. Within three months of beginning my investigation into the event, I realized the Slip was not a unique occurrence. I have strong reason to believe that when that first experiment took place in the future, it initiated a cascade effect, one that will occur again on the exact date of the first experiment—January 1st 2042.”
Jim began to ask a question but Lorentz silenced him with a raised hand. Lorentz’s voice had gradually grown less substantial as he explained the depth of the misfortune he believed he had set loose on the world. To those gathered around the table, he appeared to slowly crumple into himself as he recounted his part in what was surely the greatest catastrophe ever to occur; an event Lorentz felt was entirely his fault.
“On that date,” he continued, “we will once more be thrown back in time twenty-five years. Everything we learn in the coming years, all life born during that time, every step forward we make will once again be wiped clean. We will all be thrust back into the chaos and destruction that accompanied the first Slip.” Lorentz paused before adding, “Although, I think the despair will be even greater the next time around. The devastation too great to even begin to imagine.”