chapter 10
TEAM 2, YEAR: 2016
Time Remaining: 185 Days
Owen was taken aback. Who are these lunatics that I’ve let into my office? thought Owen. I brought them here and now they’re going to vaporize me!
“Oh, wait, this is just a flashlight. You said you’ve seen those.” Finn smiled broadly and switched off the light.
“Finn!” snapped Riley, slapping him not-so-playfully upside the head. “Finn is our practical joker. Please forgive him and his poorly timed sense of humour.”
Owen’s heartbeat slowed to normal for the second time that morning. “Okay, okay. You’ve got my attention. How did you do that?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. He wanted nothing more than to try the light-beam tool. That was no prop.
Riley smiled, happy to have gotten over the hump. “It’s a VersaTool, a fairly standard multipurpose utility tool. It does a few different things. It’s got a move tool and a compression tool like you just saw and a high-powered flashlight as Finn was also kind enough to show you. Depending on how much you spend on the tool will determine how many options you get, kind of like a Swiss Army knife. The ones we have are NRD-issued so they’ve got all the bells and whistles.” Riley pointed to the different buttons and sliders on the handle of the tool. “You can also heat, cool and cut things.” She handed it to Owen. “The move tool is pretty self-explanatory. It allows you to move heavy objects that you might not have been able to do without a significant amount of effort. Just press the button down halfway and you’ll see the red laser light… Yes, like that,” she explained as Owen aimed the red beam at his chair.
“Now press the button down the rest of the way and hold it.” Like the desk had, the chair glowed red. “With the button pressed, the object is locked in the beam, so wherever you aim the beam is where the chair will go. Raise the beam up and it will go up,” Owen was a half-step ahead of her, his seat already in the air.
“This is unbelievable,” said Owen as he raised his chair waist height. One of the wheels bumped the desk and a pen rolled toward the edge and fell to the floor. Owen moved the chair up and over his desk then set it back down again. It was as effortless as a flick of the wrist. He handed the tool back to Riley. He pushed his questions temporarily to the back of his mind to learn more about the fascinating device. He turned to Finn. “So can you make my trophy bigger than it was? You know, so it looks like I won?”
“Sure,” Finn chuckled. He put the trophy on Owen’s desk, aimed the blue beam carefully at the tiny prize and increased its size. “Making things bigger is tricky. You need good aim. Aim is less important when you’re making things smaller that were already big to begin with. I once decompressed a desk by accident and blew up a room. I was trying to resize someone’s CI after shrinking it as a joke, but I got the desk instead. It ended up bigger than the room and I broke the ceiling and knocked myself out in the process,” chuckled Finn, smiling at the memory. “It took a bit of explaining to my boss.” He looked at Riley with a sheepish smile.
“Decompressed? CI?” asked Owen.
Finn chuckled. In 2097, these concepts were simple and a fundamental part of everyday life. “Compression is when you make objects smaller, shrinking them like I did to your trophy. Decompressing is when you make them large again.”
“The CI is similar to what you would call a computer,” said Riley. She placed her backpack on the floor and sat down, eager to get down to business.
Finn passed Owen his VersaTool. “Same concept as the move tool but you slide the button as you hold it down. Press the button half way to bring up the beam and aim it whatever you want to compress. When the object glows blue, press the button the rest of the way and then move the slider up or down depending on the size you’d like.”
Owen took the tool behind his desk and again preyed on his chair. He repeatedly made it smaller and larger, compressing and decompressing it, and in the process, knocked over another stack of binders. He felt the tool vibrate in his hand when the chair reached its original size. He released the button and the blue beam disappeared. Surprised by the tool’s considerable weight, he held it up for a closer look. He saw a display embedded in the handle indicating what mode the tool was in. Using the control buttons beside the display, he flipped through the list of settings. He saw the options that Riley had told him about: HEAT, COOL, CUT, MOVE, METAL DETECTOR, COMPRESS/DECOMPRESS, HEAT SENSOR. There were several others he made a mental note to look at later if he got the chance. He returned the tool to Finn.
“So, let’s say for a moment that I believe you.” Owen pressed down on the arms and on the seat of his chair several times, ensuring it was still structurally sound after the abuse it had just endured. It passed his inspection and he sat. “How did you travel back in time?”
“Time travel has been around for about twelve years or so. It’s highly controlled by the NRD and generally not available for civilian use.” Riley grabbed her backpack off the floor and held the front flap open for him to see inside. “These backpacks control a person’s ability to travel time. What you see here is the control interface.”
Owen studied the complicated looking screens of coordinates, dates, maps and other controls he could not identify. “This is what you were looking at after you saved me earlier. To make sure it was still working after we both fell on it?”
“Yeah, I should’ve given it to Finn while I grabbed you.”
Riley pointed at different numbers and settings as she explained their purpose. “These are your landing coordinates. This is the date and time you will land at those coordinates. This is your real-time and this is the dimension number you want to travel in. This other stuff isn’t too important.” She waved off a screen about tag syncing.
“Dimension number?” asked Owen.
“Yes. Time travel now requires mandatory inter-dimensional travel.” Riley zipped up the pack, slid her arms through the straps and hopped up to sit on the nearest lab table. “There have been two versions of time travel. Time Travel 1.0 and Time Travel 2.0. Version one, called TT1.0, was replaced by version two, TT2.0, after it was deemed exceptionally unsafe.”
Owen’s expression became pained. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “I think I need coffee. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to follow this conversation without caffeine in my system.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Does anyone want coffee? I’m assuming you still have coffee in the future?”
“Yes!” said Finn quickly. “I’d love coffee. They didn’t let me travel back with a hot beverage. Something about ‘for my own safety.’”
Owen listened to Riley as he grabbed the glass carafe from the coffee maker and filled it up at one of the sinks in the lab.
“Time travel is a somewhat recent discovery,” said Riley. “Time Travel 1.0 was discovered and tested in 2085, though the method was quickly discarded.”
“The testing of time travel nearly destroyed the discovery of itself,” said Finn.
Owen eyed the water as it filled the carafe. He suspected a full pot would be needed for this conversation. “That sounds complicated. How could that even happen?”
“It’s a fascinating story and it caused a lot of controversy. It is an excellent example of how, even with the best intentions, time travel can cause a lot of damage to the future and it has to be used with extreme caution,” said Finn.
“How dangerous can it be, other than breaking your backpack and getting stranded in the past?” Owen poured the water into the coffee maker, turned the machine on and returned to his desk.
“The smallest, most insignificant event, like bumping a guy in the street, could completely change your life as you know it when you return. In fact, it could even cause you to not have been born,” explained Riley.
Owen’s eyes narrowed. “How could bumping a guy that you don’t even know alter your life?”
“More easily than you’d think,” said Finn. “Imagine this. You bump a guy on the street, he drops his bag. You pi
ck it up for him and you both exchange apologies. He then runs ten seconds later than he was supposed to. He misses his bus and is late for a meeting that will now hold twenty people, fifteen minutes later than they were supposed to. Those people could have been meeting other people and are now late and may now miss a very crucial moment of their life. Maybe they missed an elevator where they were supposed to meet their future wife. Maybe that woman is your mother or grandmother. Maybe they speed home because they’re late, have an accident and die. Maybe that’s your father.”
Owen took a moment to digest Finn’s words. “I guess that makes sense. You’re sending small ripples of change through time that could eventually accumulate into a tsunami of change,” said Owen.
“Exactly. The next thing you know, people aren’t getting born when they should have and, as a result, future leaders may never be born. Well, maybe that’s not the best example,” said Finn. “But what if one of the Rolling Stones hadn’t been born? What if Mick Jagger hadn’t been born because of a hiccup in time? It would be a sad, sad loss to antique rock and its culture.”
“We try to not alter anything in the past and keep a low profile, interfering in as few lives as possible,” said Riley.
“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” said Owen. “So how does time travel work? How was it discovered?”
“Well, Time Travel 1.0 was discovered by three scientists. Or, that’s what two of the scientists, Jason Cortez and Brandon Page, claim. They give credit to a third scientist by the name of Adam Seers,” explained Riley.
Owen opened his mouth to ask more questions but could not decide what to ask first. He decided to wait.
Riley continued. “The test team chose the year 2000 because it seemed like a landmark year for such a landmark discovery. All three scientists went back in time with no problems, except that their coordinates were off by a city block. Instead of landing in an alley out of sight, they materialized in the middle of a busy intersection. Cars swerved to miss them and it resulted in an eighteen car pile-up. It was a real mess. Pedestrians were hit and one car smashed through the front window of a restaurant. They ran over to the most severe collision to see if they could help. As they approached the car, they found the driver crawling out of the wreck, covered in his own blood. He collapsed on the pavement in front of them. They tried to revive him but he had lost too much blood and died.”
“And that’s where it gets really weird,” said Finn, sitting up straighter, his eyes widening. “One of the scientists, Adam Seers, disappeared just as the man died.”
“As in, he took off?” asked Owen.
“No, as in vanished into thin air!” said Finn theatrically, waving his hands for dramatic emphasis.
Owen’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “Wait, so you’re saying a man, this Adam Seers, just disappeared?”
“Yes. He had been de-created, so he vanished into non-existence.”
Owen looked at Riley, puzzled. “De-created?” The slurping sounds from the coffee maker had stopped. Listening intently, Owen poured his guests coffee. Finn popped five sugar cubes into the small mug, stirred it quickly and took a sip as though his life depended on it. Riley added milk to her coffee and settled again into the chair opposite Owen’s desk.
“De-creation,” explained Riley, “is when people, things or events, from a present-day perspective, don’t happen as a result of events in the past being altered or ‘shifted.’ De-created people, things and events are erased from our—that is from a future person’s—perspective. Memories get deleted because the events they remember never ended up happening. The other two scientists were dumbstruck by what they just witnessed, but the disappearance of their co-worker could only be the result of one thing—de-creation. So they found the driver’s wallet to see who he was. His name was Jon Seers.”
“The two men were related?” asked Owen.
“Yes. It was his great-grandfather who had died,” said Riley. “So when Seer’s great-grandfather died, from the 2085 perspective, time rewrote itself eliminating Seer’s grandfather, father and Adam himself because none of them could’ve existed if Jon Seers had died.”
A moment’s silence passed while Owen processed this information. “But if you follow that logic, then technically, Cortez and Page shouldn’t even know that an Adam Seers ever existed.”
“This is true, and an excellent observation. When you travel time, you are plucked out of your natural time sequence. If time rewrites itself and you’re not in your natural time sequence, everything in your mind remains unaltered. You remember and know everything you did when you left. The downside is, when you come back, your life will have been re-written. You’ll have no idea what’s different until you stumble across it. So when we return from this mission, my memories and recollections may be radically different than what my new reality is. I may not have gone to the elementary school I have in my memory. I may not have dated the people I remember dating in high school. I might not be friends with the same people and I have no way of knowing until I call them and they have no idea who I am,” said Riley. “Hell, I might not have even been born.”
“That sounds like a horrible nightmare,” said Owen, taking a sip from his coffee.
“That’s why the reason we’re here is so bloody important,” said Finn. “Now, for the two scientists, when they returned home, no one knew who this Adam Seers was. There was no record of him at NRD and, of course, there was no record of his birth. This is where it gets controversial. Most people didn’t believe Cortez and Page’s story and thought that the trip back in time had rattled their brains. People who had worked with Seers for years and were very well acquainted with the theory of de-creation didn’t believe it themselves, even though they were living a textbook case of it. They couldn’t accept Cortez and Page’s claim that Seers no longer existed because there was no evidence indicating that he had existed in the first place. It was a real mental loop. It was like people needed proof to believe he existed before they could believe that he didn’t.
“Now move two years into the future to 2087. Time Travel 2.0 is discovered and deemed safe,” said Finn. He made air quotes around the word safe.
“You seem sceptical,” said Owen. “So how is the second version better than the first, if it’s still so risky?”
“TT2.0 is the mandatory inter-dimensional time travel I mentioned earlier,” said Riley. She could see she had lost Owen again with his vacant stare. “It’s safe to say that most people in this, your day and age, recognize comfortably that there are three dimensions, width, depth and height. These first three dimensions are intertwined and can’t be separated from each other. They are very basic dimensions,” explained Riley. “Everything that you physically see exists in what people call 3D or three-dimensional, correct?”
Owen nodded in agreement.
“There are actually more dimensions than most people realize,” said Finn. “The fourth dimension is time, or duration.”
“Without the dimension of time, things wouldn’t be. For example, if you’re born in 2015 and you died in 2095, you existed in the fourth dimension from 2015 to 2095,” said Riley.
Owen silently held up the coffee carafe and Riley and Finn both extended their mugs for a refill.
“It’s impossible to travel in only one of the first four dimensions because they depend on your existence in the other three,” said Riley. “Us sitting here, right now, are in four dimensions. With TT1.0, if you were to travel back in time, you would be travelling in the same four dimensions that you are currently occupying. Since the first four dimensions are so basic and unprotected, you’re left vulnerable to de-creation and other damaging, catastrophic outcomes, just like Adam Seers was.”
“And travelling in other dimensions is safer?” asked Owen.
“Well, yes and no. The dimensions beyond the first four start to get more complicated. Mostly because we don’t know everything there is to know about them, and not fully understanding them is a pretty big risk in its
elf,” said Riley. “But they seem to have better handling for complex objects. For example, a single four-dimensional object can be put in one of these complex dimensions, say the fifth or sixth dimension.”
“Basically, traveling back in time in dimensions five and up preserves your current physical state,” said Finn. “When you travel with TT2.0, your body is plucked out of the first four dimensions and wrapped up in say, the fifth dimension. You’ll appear at your destination in the past, but you’ll remain in the fifth dimension until you return back. When you do finally return to your regular time, you’re reinserted into the first four dimensions again. While in that fifth dimension, you are protected from any pre-generational mishaps that could alter you or de-create you entirely when time is rewritten. No matter what happens, you are preserved in your present state.”
“So, what you’re saying is that right now you guys are in the fifth dimension and are therefore preserved as you are right now. If one of you killed your grandmother, you wouldn’t be de-created.”
Riley was impressed with how quickly he picked it up. He was proving himself to be as smart as she had expected. “Correct.”
“And if you did kill your grandmother, what would happen when you returned?”
“My life would be a mess. Well, actually, I’d have no life. Nobody would know who I was except for people who travelled with me. I would be an Orphan of Time.”
“An Orphan of Time?”
“Yes, so if Riley’s grandmother did die, time would rewrite itself. Riley’s mother and, of course, Riley, would never have been born so there would be no record of any kind of Riley or her mother. Riley would return and have absolutely no identity. No home, no social identification number, no bank account, no job, no friends, no family and so on,” said Finn.
“Sounds messy. I can see why you’d want to keep a low profile while you’re here,” said Owen. He thought he might be getting his head wrapped around the concept of time travel, but that thought alone blew his mind all over again. “So let me see if I’ve got this. Three scientists went back in time in dimensions one, two, three and four. They weren’t protected from de-creation. Great-grampa Seers died. Seers the scientist disappeared. Time was re-written so the people in 2085 didn’t know who Seers was because they were in their natural time sequence, so their memories were re-written to exclude any trace of him. Cortez and Page, because they were pulled out of their natural time sequence and, therefore, weren’t around as time re-wrote itself, remembered everything. In contrast, if the scientists had travelled in the fifth dimension, Seers would have lived despite his great-grandfather being killed. But, he would have been an Orphan of Time and upon their return to 2085, Seers would be alive, but no one except his two buddies would know who he was.”
“Exactly,” said Riley. “Also worth noting, if something happened to you while you were travelling time, say you lost your arm or something, you would still be missing your arm when you returned.”
“Interesting. So that cut on your arm will be there when you return?” asked Owen.
Riley nodded. “Anyone who elects to travel in time is made very aware of the risks and knows that there are no guarantees. Nothing horrific has gone wrong since the Seers fiasco.”
“Do a lot of people travel back in time?” asked Owen.
“Not really. It’s heavily regulated,” said Riley. “It’s used mostly for information gathering purposes, but even then, it’s not used that often. There is still too much unknown about it to use it recreationally.”
“Well, I have to say that I’m grateful that time travel isn’t part of my job description.” Owen shot back the rest of his lukewarm coffee and, in doing so, missed Riley and Finn exchanging glances. “So, I’m interested to hear what your operation has to do with me.”
“Yes, we need to get into that, but I want to make sure we’re not overheard,” said Riley.
“You’re in luck. Nobody ever comes in here.”
“Good. This is not a conversation we want to have overheard.” Riley wasted no time and dove right in. “We know that you’ve made some significant findings in the project that you’re working on for the International Space Coalition.”
Owen felt his stomach cinch up into his throat. They wanted to talk about his work with the ISC. He had accepted that the pair was from the future and, as crazy as that sounded in itself, it was not reason enough for him to break the very strict nondisclosure agreement he had with the ISC. He had signed his life away when he agreed to work on the project, swearing absolute secrecy. There were serious penalties for breaking his silence including jail time and fines that his grandchildren would still be paying long after he was gone.
Fourteen months previous, the ISC launched a program to search for planets similar to Earth. For years, the ISC’s two earth-orbiting telescopes had been circumnavigating the planet collecting information and occasionally shooting brilliant photos of galaxies, nebulas and other celestial bodies. For this project, their attention would be focused on finding life beyond our solar system.
Within months of the program’s launch, the ISC received a significant amount of data from hundreds of planets. The two massive telescopes returned breathtakingly detailed images of the surfaces of different planets and nearby moons, meteors, dust and gas clouds. Collected from each planet and its surrounding environment, were thousands of unique light reflection signatures—a reading of how light reflected off surfaces of different objects on the planets. With that information, the ISC could determine the composition and other characteristics of various objects or substances.
Prior to the start of the project, the ISC approached Owen to see if he would be one of three astrogeologists to help analyze the data. His job would be to cross-reference light reflection signatures against those of ordinary earthly substances, as well as the remnants of meteors collected on Earth, and note any remarkable findings.
Waiting for the data to arrive filled Owen with anticipation. The prospect of discovering the origins of the meteors that had hit Earth, or discovering some kind of new, never-before-seen cosmic element would not only be a career highlight, but a dream come true. When the data finally did arrive, analysis of the results revealed nothing remarkable. By the end of his six-month contract with the ISC, Owen had found many common materials and elements. Many of them were iron, magnesium and various silicates, but none were exact matches with anything found on Earth. Owen was disappointed not to have made any earth-shattering discoveries.
Owen had finalized his reports and had begun wrapping up his work on the project when the ISC approached him to extend his contract another six months. He accepted the extension but this time, protocols and reporting procedures had changed significantly, and information was treated like secrets of international security. Upon his acceptance, he required security clearances higher than he had previously been granted and underwent a psychological assessment. A representative from the ISC met with him to discuss the nature of the extension, but none of what was discussed seemed overly sensitive. In fact, it had been in the news several weeks prior. All over the world, people were buzzing about an astonishing planetary discovery made by one of the telescopes. Key Eleven was a misshapen planet from a unique system in the Andromeda galaxy called the Keys System. The Keys System was named for the distinctive synchronized alignment of several planets rotating around their sun. Their arrangement in relation to each other resembled a series of islands in an ocean of space.
Since the discovery of the Keys System, Key Eleven remained a hot topic of speculation for scientists and the world because it was unlike any other planet ever seen. Like Earth, it was green and blue; but unlike the Earth, one-third of the planet was missing. The planet appeared to have been a victim of a massive intergalactic collision, leaving the interior of the planet visible to its core. The exposed inner layers of the decimated planet were black, except for the brilliant white core that glistened to the point of glowing.
News of this unusual planet had ca
ptivated the world. Astronomers hypothesized that, based on the relatively short distance between the Earth and the Andromeda galaxy, it was very possible that one of the many meteors that pummelled the Earth over its billions of years of existence could be remnants of Key Eleven. The ISC’s secretive behaviour made Owen question whether the ISC had more than just a theory on those rumours and were trying to get their facts straight before issuing any public statements.
With all of the data collected on Key Eleven personally escorted and hand-delivered to Owen, he got to work on the project. His mandate was to learn everything he could about Key Eleven and to note any other unusual findings. Nothing the ISC had told him about the project seemed to warrant the need for increased security. Owen felt the hush-hush nature of the project was unfortunate because Key Eleven had captured the world’s attention and injected much-needed interest in space programs all over the world.
The extension of his contract began only weeks after his father’s death. To deal with the pain and depression surrounding the loss of his father, Owen threw himself into the project. He spent more hours in the lab than he cared to calculate, even staying overnight on occasion, not wanting to return to his empty house. Within the first two weeks of the project, Owen discovered the first exact match. Several of the light reflection signatures collected from the exposed inner layers of the planet matched meteoric remnants found in three different impact sites around North America. This discovery was momentous; it meant that there was a good chance that more of Key Eleven could be on Earth, if it had not burned up as the meteors entered Earth’s atmosphere.
After several eighty-hour weeks, Owen was months ahead of schedule. He had analyzed over eighty-five percent of the light samples and was beginning to wonder if the planet had revealed all of its secrets in the three matches he had already confirmed. However, at the end of the first month, Owen learned something very extraordinary about Key Eleven and he now understood the ISC’s secretive behaviour.
The light reflection signatures collected from the planet’s gleaming core revealed many properties, all unlike anything found on Earth. Or for that matter, unlike anything found on the other hundreds of planets. The energy level of the core material and some of its other properties were barely calculable and Owen knew this had to be what spooked the ISC. Without an understanding of this material, a leak of information this sensitive would be a nightmare of global proportions. The public already suspected parts of Key Eleven were on Earth, and soon the same would be assumed of this alien core material. If the general public was to learn of its bizarre, otherworldly properties, any number of social issues could erupt. Fear of the unknown could cause a worldwide panic or, worse still, a country or private organization might try to gain access to it, should it possess any properties of value. Its physical discovery and recovery could change the face of the planet—for better or worse was anyone’s speculation. What if it was highly toxic and it wiped out the planet? Who would own it? The country it happened to land in or the organization that found it? What if it sparked a global conflict? Wars over land and resources were not uncommon, and with the world scrambling to develop alternative sources of energy, the discovery of a high-power energy source would undoubtedly lead to global chaos.
Upon this discovery, the unspoken portion of Owen’s mandate became abundantly clear. He needed to learn as much as he could about Key Eleven’s core material, so if and when a time came to discuss it with the public, the ISC would have reliable, albeit hypothetical, information to report. In the months that followed, Owen compared data from the core material to existing substances on Earth that possessed vaguely similar characteristics, attempting to gain a wider understanding of the material. Because there was no other element like it on Earth, he could never be absolutely certain of anything and could only hypothesize. Being a scientist who typically deals in absolutes, the theoretical nature of the project at times left him frustrated. He always felt so close to brilliant discoveries, but because he had no physical proof, only hypotheses, he could never be sure. He had experienced the same unfulfilled, aching feeling as a kid looking up at the glittering night skies with his telescope. Seeing the moon and other planets was amazing, but it left part of him feeling slightly unfulfilled. As silly as he knew it sounded, not being able to reach out and touch the planets that looked so close made for a hollow experience.
Having accomplished much of the project in the first month, Owen was free to spend the time remaining studying the properties of this new element, which he had named Elevanium. Elevanium was an extremely dense, rocklike substance with a density of energy beyond what he could accurately calculate, and far beyond anything on Earth. It appeared to be so dense that Owen suspected a piece the size of a pea could supply the power needs of a single family home for several lifetimes, if it could somehow be harnessed. Having proven that parts of Key Eleven’s mantle had already been found in three different locations on Earth, it was reasonable to assume that part of the planet’s core had also traveled to Earth.
With the research and analysis of the ISC’s data on Key Eleven nearly complete, Owen’s work on the project was drawing to a close. His final task would be to compile his data and write the formal reports revealing his findings to the ISC. Owen knew he held significant conclusions that would rock the world—if the ISC chose to release it. He suspected they never would.
Riley appreciated Owen’s hesitation to speak about the project. She would face any combination of court-martialing, jail time or astronomical fines if she were to divulge anything she had learned during any of her top secret operations.
“I understand why you’re hesitant to talk about the project. You don’t have to say anything right now. I’ll tell you what I know,” said Riley. She walked toward the basement window and looked out at the colourful array of tulips in the flower bed just above her eye level. “We know you’ve found a new element in this batch of light samples. We also know that several remarkable readings came from the core of Key Eleven and you believe there’s a good chance that part of Key Eleven’s core material is on Earth.”
Owen looked at Riley, his mouth agape. Everything she had said was completely accurate, but he had shared that information with absolutely no one.
Riley pulled some papers from the back of her bag and handed them to Owen. She watched his eyes grow as he flipped through the pages. He unlocked and opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a brown manila folder. He flipped through the documents inside, took one page in particular and held it up beside the papers Riley had handed him. The pages were identical. Each word printed on the pages matched; Owen’s handwritten notes in the left margin were the same, right down to the blue ballpoint pen ink. The only difference between the two pages was that Riley’s paper had yellowed slightly with age. Owen was speechless.
“How did you get this? If I was supposed to die today, how would you come to know anything about what I’ve done?” asked Owen.
“The majority of the work was done, um…well, before your untimely demise,” said Riley, hoping to sound appropriately sensitive. She pulled an official-looking, coil-bound report from her backpack and handed it to Owen. “When you died, all of your findings, extrapolations, notes and drawings were sent back to ISC and they compiled this report.”
Owen looked at the title of the document and nearly fell out of his chair. Light Reflection Signature Analysis and Findings Report from Planet 397.309.290.838 AKZ (Key Eleven) by the late Owen Taylor (Compiled by Steven Falcon.) He flipped through the pages and found his work. It was another surreal experience.
“Your hypotheses are spot on for the most part. Some of that core material is on Earth right now. It will be discovered by miners in 2047 when they sink a new mine shaft,” said Finn.
Owen looked at Finn, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Really? How much of it?”
Finn looked stumped for a moment. “I’m unsure exactly. A lot, for what it is. About the size of an Olympic-sized swimming pool maybe.”
/>
“Wow,” breathed Owen. He leaned back in his chair and flipped through the pages of the report that had been created after his death. “So what do you need me for?”
“We need you to help us destroy it,” said Riley.