“Val, wait!” he yelled after her. When he rounded the corner to chase her, she had disappeared. Instantly, he knew her plan. As quick as his legs could move him, he ran to the deck and waited.
Val reappeared from thin air in the middle of a desert. A hundred meters away, she saw a guardhouse with a solitary soldier sleeping. She snuck up behind the man and broke his neck.
It won't matter here in the future
. She opened the door with the guards hand and before leaving him, she grabbed his sidearm.
Downstairs, she saw a labyrinthine web of stairwells and corridors running in all directions. Looking down, she saw the ground floor, an area marked by red, flashing lights. She teleported to the bottom level, skipping past the myriad of guards wandering the base. Once at the door, she peeked inside and saw several well-armed troops guarding another door inside the next room. She knew she'd need something other than a gun to disarm them.
Inside the door, the troops held their guns ready when a beautiful, naked girl appeared before them, seemingly out of nowhere. They flinched and kept their guns aimed, but hesitated when they saw her smile. It was enough to distract them. She shot both of them, opened the door she teleported through, and put her clothes back on. The next door was sealed, but it opened easily – all she had to do was enter a code, which she already knew.
The base Val had broken into had a singular purpose: to guard the most advanced craft ever designed by the United States government. The ship, built to endure spaceflight, was large enough to hold the entire platform Roger needed to move. Fortunately, she was not the only one who could travel through time; the government possessed a similar device as Archer and conveniently affixed the one and only prototype to their flagship spacecraft – which Val was about to steal.
Roger waited on the deck of the platform and stared at his watch, wondering how close to five minutes he would need to wait for Val's return. With eighteen seconds to spare, he heard a thunder crack and followed the sound. Below the platform, the stolen vessel from the future was floating gracefully above the surface of the ocean. Roger was stunned by the size of it.
“Will this work?” Val said, approaching Roger from behind.
He turned and rapidly nodded. Overcome with excitement, he grabbed Val and hugged her tight. “How did you do it?”
“One of my loyal patrons at the club was a soldier. He talked in his sleep. I'm kind of surprised I still remembered the security code,” she said.
Roger laughed. “How are we going to explain any of this to Archer?”
“Oh, you'll figure that out, won't you? After all, I'm not allowed to see him yet, am I?” She turned away and skipped below deck, confidant she had done enough to earn a quiet night sleep. “And by the way,” she called out to Roger, “I hear the far side of the moon is lovely this time of year.”
Roger watched her run off and shook his head, chuckling. He pulled a com from his pocket and called out: “Bridge? We need everyone to the surface to evacuate immediately. Have Archer meet me in my office.”
Roger sat quietly in the conference room with all one hundred civilians present. Over the last week, they had all been forced to move everything they could carry from their home on the oil platform to the vessel they now called home. Roger was forced to lie to Archer and tell him it was stolen from the present. Archer never believed it but went along with the story.
True to Val's suggestion, the ship lied on the far side of the moon, away from the prying eye of any Earth satellite. Archer, Val, and Roger were the only persons who knew the ship was in space. While they were never lied to, the other celibates, the crew, and the civilians were told of the evacuation – all but Archer were told the truth (minus their location), while Archer thought the government was after them.
Despite the chaos on-board, the departure date was still approaching. Roger needed to go over the expedition itinerary with the civilians. That was why they were gathered now. Before entering the room, they were each given a copy of the constitution earlier presented to the celibates.
“So does anyone have questions about the new constitution?” Roger asked.
No one raised a hand.
“Well, as all of you already know, I have an open door, so if you have any questions, you are free to ask later.
“By now, all of you know the general nature of your place here. I stand resolute that if we tried to govern ourselves exclusively with what we know presently, we would be back in the same place a few thousand years from now. Although none of us will be here, those affected will be your direct descendants, so I'm sure all of us have an interest in our success.
“For that reason, each of your groups – doctors, artists, engineers, et cetera – will have two months in the future to gather what you can with regard to the advancements our race has made. I hope that we will not just bring back cures and technology, but knowledge – knowledge that will help us live in greater harmony with the planet and will enrich our lives.
“A confidential, intelligence-gathering mission has shown money to be a bigger status symbol in the future than it is now. The good news is that cash is still king and hasn't changed too much. You will each be given enough money to subsist for the two months and a little extra to get the most out of your journey.
“As for our return, I ask all of you to consider living by our constitution
now
. It will obviously undergo some revisions after we integrate what you learn, but it would still be wise to start practicing for the resettlement. While all of you are here to repopulate the species, we will still honor conventional relationships to maintain order. With that said, the priority on our return is to make babies. Therefore, for the first year of our arrival, there will be no formal marriages. We need every female pregnant as soon as possible. I know many of you are already working very hard to that goal...”
They all laughed.
“...and that is fine for now. When we get back, we'll need to get a little
more serious. Since we have fifty men and fifty women with us, two in each field, you will all be required to live as husband and wife for the two months we are gone. If you would like to begin doing so now, I have no objections.”
The group sat quietly, many of them with broad smiles on their faces. Many looked around at the opposite sex, some even flirting across the table.
“Any questions?” Roger asked.
Still, not a word from the group.
“Okay, then I'll be in my office down the hall. You all know how to reach me.”
Roger left the room promptly and the civilians followed suit – except the two from the Philanthropy group, who stayed behind and locked the door.
Chapter 7
The ship Val brought back from the future was far more advanced than Archer first realized. It already had time-travel capability and was well built for space. As always, Archer never asked where it came from, but Roger never tried to keep something this big a secret. When pressed for information about it, Roger would never confirm its origin directly, but would give away clues nonetheless.
One of the first tests conducted was on the time machine. It didn't take long for Archer to modify the teleporters to work with the new machine; it was based on the same technology. This revelation made Archer proud, since it proved just how far ahead he was of his colleagues (if his assumptions that the vessel came from the future were correct). In just days, Archer had enough teleporters ready for the entire civilian group and a few extra at Roger's request.
Presently, Roger sat on the bridge of the vessel as Archer and the crew ran a series of checks.
“Well, Roger, wherever you got this thing, it seems to be able to do all the things we need it to do.”
“That's a good thing, right?” Roger asked.
“Sure. In fact, it means we can do things safer. The other craft – which now sits safely at the bottom of the ocean – was never designed for space flight. But the space-time continuum is a lot easier to manipulate in empty space.”
“Then it's a marvelous stroke of serendipity that we came upon our new home.”
Archer tried to read Roger's expression but he just sipped his tea – while simultaneously giving Archer a wink.
“No matter where you got this thing, it seems to be in good order, almost as if it's never been used. We should be ready to leave in the morning.”
“Very well, Doctor. The expedition crew will be at your disposal. They all have their assignments and will serve you well. Did you look over that itinerary I gave
you
?”
Archer bowed his head a little. “I did, but...”
“But what?” Roger asked.
“Well, I don't understand why you need
me
to find a lot of these things. I mean, I'm a physicist and you have me tracking down water sources on the moon.”
Roger had indeed given Archer a laundry list of side-missions to achieve, none of which were necessary. On the contrary, while he and the civilians carried out their assignments, the one thing the crew needed was to keep John Archer in the dark for two months. Roger asked Val for a suggestion and Archer's itinerary was the result – a sort of cobbled together agenda filled with impossible
or pointless tasks that would take up most of his time. Many of the items would be useful if found but hardly relevant to their ultimate goal; and they were abstract enough given Archer's limited knowledge of the plan. “The teams will be quite busy already, Doctor Archer. The list I gave you contains a few things that either could not be fitted into anyone's schedule or fell outside anyone's realm of expertise.” Roger paused to sip his tea. “You should be flattered you were only given two months to achieve it all. Anyone lesser would've have required twice as long.”
Archer smiled, although he was accustomed to Roger's form of flattery. He never doubted Roger's respect for him, but in this instance, he felt it far more likely that he was being sent on a wild goose chase instead of given a real top-secret mission. “Thank you, Roger.”