A Loop in Time (15 page)

It had been six days of scouring the desert looking for any clue of the missing plane. There was none. The general had set up operations at a small military hospital in Arizona. Every day he walked past a cement box that read, Closed 1966 Open April 18, 2014. He scratched his head, but he walked on. One day he got the base commander aside and asked, “What is that?”

“It’s a time capsule. It’s been there a long time. We are going to open it on April 18th, but with all that is happening we postponed it.”

The general suddenly remembered Jason’s words, ‘They are in a time capsule in Arizona on a military base.’ “Open it now, its past April 18, 2014. I think it might have something to do with our missing plane.”

The major looked shocked.

“No, I haven’t lost my mind. I have only lost a plane. I had a crazy man say the black boxes were in a time capsule. At least I thought he was crazy. I just want to check it out.”

“Yes, Sir,” the major said, but he was still looking at the general suspiciously.

The orders were given, and an hour later a small crane showed up to pull the top off of the time capsule. Inside rested a lot of paperwork and two mangled orange and white Black Boxes. Avery picked up the papers that were on top and started to read.

Feb 17. 1966. To General Avery. The F117A crashed in the desert in 1966, forty five years before it took off. The Pilot Jason Ralston survived the crash. You will find the black boxes here. It was decided not to report this incident to anyone other than those on the base, for reasons that made sense at the time.

Colonel Rodgers, United States Army.

The general got on the phone. “What are the serial numbers for the black boxes on the F117?”

When he read the serial numbers out loud, the major, who was checking them nodded that these were indeed the ones.

The general made the arrangements to return with the boxes. He would meet with John again, but he would have a lot more information this time around. He didn’t like bring caught off guard the first time he met John.

 He waited for a week until all the data had been compiled and then he met with his investigators. One of them had compiled a program from the information on the flight data recorder and the other on the cockpit voice recorder. He also brought in someone from Military Intelligence.

When everyone was seated, he turned to one of his men and said, “Major Thompson, can you start?”

“Yes, Sir. I have the voice recording of the crash.”

He hit the play button.

“We’re losing him!”

“I’m still here-”

“We’re losing--” the voice cut out, then there was silence.

“Control, do you read me? Control?”

“The first voice you hear is the tower and then that of the pilot. We have done a voice analysis of the tape to see if it was altered in anyway. It was not. The voices you hear are of the actual event.”

“Thank you, Major. Now Colonel James, what do you have?”

The colonel pointed at the technician to start the computer simulation. “Here we have the flight data from the plane. It started into a rapid increase in speed after the engines became unstable. We lost contact with it at thirty-one minutes into the flight, but the craft kept going an hour after that, reaching speeds of mach 2.5 before it started to disintegrate.  It slowed down enough for the pilot to eject when the engines burned themselves out. It stopped recording data about that point.”

“What are those numbers flashing across the bottom so fast that they can’t be read?” the general asked.

“That is the puzzling part, Sir. That is the date it is getting off the GPS satellites. The interesting part is the date is going backwards.”

“Can you slow down the simulation so we can read it?”

“Of course,” the colonel replied and nodded to the technician. The whole room watched as the plane moved slowly back in time.

“Why does it stop in 1978?” the general asked.

“It ran out of GPS satellites at that time. That is when the first one became operational.”

“So what do you make of all this, Colonel?”

The colonel was hesitant to reply but did. “Sir, it looks to me like we have invented a time machine. Unfortunately, one we cannot control, and we have lost a pilot because of it.”

“I have just one more question. Those radar blips we saw going up to the time of the test. Are those our own plane going back in time?”

“Yes, Sir. We watched the plane going back in time, but had no idea what we were seeing.”

“That brings me to the next report. Captain Jacobs, you go first, then I want to hear from you, Captain Smith.”

“Yes, Sir. I brought back the papers from the time capsule in Arizona and read through them. They tell an amazing story of how a strange plane landed in the desert. This was in the middle of the Cold War and they thought at first it was Russian. They found out differently, but they tell of a man from the future who was hospitalized in Arizona with amnesia because of his injuries suffered during the crash. They nursed him back to health and sent him on his way. This was back in 1966.”

“Why didn’t they report this up the Chain of Command?” the general asked.

“It would have been a career ending move. Roswell was still fresh in their minds at that time. The men at the base didn’t think anyone would believe them anyway.”

“Okay, Captain Smith.”

The captain cleared his throat. “Sir, you asked me to look into a John Buck who had come into your office. I did. He was the pilot that crashed in Arizona. There is no prior mention of him anywhere before this happened. No birth certificate, no dental or medical records. It was just as if he appeared out of nowhere.”

“What did he do afterwards?” the general asked.

“He flew a crop duster for a couple of years and then he just managed his stock portfolio. He always seemed to find a winner and never lost any money on a stock. Another interesting thing is that he was married for one night and got it annulled. The couple claimed in front of a judge that they just found out that they were twins, but her twin brother died of alcohol poisoning two years before that. The nurse married a Doctor Ralston a week later. She is Jason’s grandmother.”

“Do you mean that our pilot is still alive?”

“Yes, he goes by the name John Buck. I have had his DNA tested and he is Jason Ralston.” The general motioned to the MP standing at the door. The MP left the room. Soon two more MPs came in escorting John.

There were gasps all around the table.

“Tell us who you really are, John Buck,” the general said.

“I am Jason Ralston. I would give you my serial number but I don’t remember it after all these years.”

There was a collective laugh.

“Tell us about the crash,” the major asked.

“The 117 wasn’t made for the speeds she was put through. I could not control the engines, but luckily they overheated and flamed out. I tried to pull the plane up but that just lost me both ailerons. Finally the plane was slowing down enough for me to get out. I should have waited a little longer, but the plane was catching on fire at that point, so I went for it. I woke up in a hospital bed with no idea of who I was.”

“When did you get your memory back?”

“On my wedding night. I figured out that I had just married my grandmother.”

There was another round of laughter from the group.

“I hope you figured it out before you consummated the marriage,” the general said.

“I really don’t want to go into details like that.”

“Of course not. How did you get on in your new life?”

“Good. I got married, but I tell you, there are things I missed at first, the internet, the home computer, cell phones and especially television remote controls. I missed those the worst. Do you know how tedious it was to get up every time you want to change the channel even with only a few stations?”

“I have a question,” the major said. “Did you worry about changing the timeline when you went back? You could have destroyed your own future and the future of all of us by your actions.”

John got serious. “You can’t change time. I thought I could at first, but it repeats itself exactly. It’s on a loop. It just keeps looping. My former self has been back in time and now my future self just went back in time. I have seen myself as an older man and as a younger man. Everything happened the same all three time loops.

“Do you think we will be able to devise a machine that travels through time?” the major asked.

“It’s a one way journey. You will have to face that fact before you try those engines again. You will have to have someone willing to go even though they know that they are not coming back.”

“Thank you, Gentlemen, that will be all for now,” the general said.

As the men filed out the general got John to the side, “will you be willing to help test this thing? We may be on to something. My superiors believe we can turn this into a weapon. We can destroy key enemies before they are born.”

“No, I would advise against it. It just complicates things and it might have just been a fluke anyway. You could spend billions and not replicate a time travel. That engine malfunctioned. You cannot replicate a malfunction. Meanwhile you will have put the lives of a lot of young pilots at risk. Besides, I am busy. I am going to take my wife to Paris. She has always wanted to go.”

Books by Clark Graham

Fantasy Fiction

Dwarves of Elvenshore

Lost Cities of Elvenshore

Elf's Bane

The Last of the Minotaur

Curse of the Druid King

War of the Druid King

Dwarves, Druids and Dragons

Short Stories

Unexpected Tales

Strange Kin

Fantasy Children's Book

Emily and the Shadow King

Mystery (Jack Warden Series)

Winning Numbers Deadly Numbers

In a Sea of Troubles

Murder on a Honeymoon

On Deadly Seas

Crime Books

Murder Beneath the Palms

Young Adult Fantasy

Wizards and Heroes

Sci-Fi

A Loop in Time

Millennium Man

Millennium Man

Two Marines stood guard at the door. Director Phillip James walked to the most secure part of the top secret facility. It was deep in the mountains of Montana. Unlike NORAD, that had all sorts of publicity in comparison, this was a small operation. It was built with one single purpose, to support the Millennium Man.  The hallway looked just like any hospital hallway in America, clean and white with the slight smell of antiseptic cleaners.

Six foot two, with short brown hair, Phil was slender, a man that most women would consider attractive. Phil walked up to the guards at the door. He was in his white lab coat and carried a clip board. There was so much computer data being used your street clothes had to be covered up at all times by a lab coat. All dust and dirt was to be kept at a minimum both for the health of the man they guarded and the highly sensitive electrical equipment in the complex. The clip board did not have charts and graphs on it like most clip boards of executives. Phil had a bad memory and always carried the clip board to write notes and reminders on.

The building had white cinderblock walls. Drop down florescent lights illuminated the halls and rooms. Every part of the building was cleaned regularly to keep dust at a minimum. Everyone who worked there also lived there, to limit the flow of information that left the complex. Phillip had just left his office and made his way down to where the Millennium Man lived. He had been ill of late and Phil was going to check up on him. It was the only reason he would venture to this part of the building. Otherwise he would gladly stay away.

The Marine guard scanned Phil’s badge, although he recognized him. When the machine dinged, the guard nodded his approval and then opened the door for Phil.

The room he entered into was brightly lit and full of medical equipment. Two doctors, five nurses and many medical assistants all stood around the bed of the patient. They had been trying to revive him for two hours. By the time Phil had arrived, they had given up.

The doctor turned to face Phil and just shook his head. “It’s over. There is nothing else we can do.”

“It can’t be over; in this time of terror threats, we need him more than ever,” Phil protested.

“He’s dead.” The doctor walked out of the room followed by most of the nurses and medical assistants.

The other doctor stayed. “Write
this
on your clipboard. Time of death, January 16
th
at 7:50 pm,” he said. He was Rick Allred, the best of the best when it came to medical doctors. Paying his huge salary was not a problem with the United States Government bankrolling the project. He had black hair and stood a couple of inches shorter than Phil. He was getting a slight pot belly, but at fifty -two, he didn’t care. He had no family close to him after his last divorce. He had no intention of starting over with another romance.

“What are we going to do?”

“Find the next one. “

Phil didn’t know what that meant. He had been hired after the Millennium Man was already here. “How do we do that?”

“Quickly. The Blues are playing god with us. They only make one Millennium Man at a time. Whoever it is, we have to find him and get him here before his powers fully develop.”

It was an alien race that they called the Blues. Even though their ships were undetectable by normal radar, the United States had developed a type of pulse radar that picked them up. The blips on the radar turned blue when it detected one of the alien ships. The name had stuck. They had no idea who the Blues were, only that they had the power to turn the human brain into something with telepathic abilities. This greatly enhanced the fight against terror, having someone who could find threats from afar.

The only problem is the Blues only did it to one person at a time, so the agency would find and kidnap that person. They had tried to mimic the alien technology a few times, but it only resulted in the death of the person they transplanted it into. The interface was so intermingled with the brain that massive brain swelling always resulted and death followed shortly after. The aliens had gotten around this somehow.

“What if they don’t make another one in the United States?” Phil wanted answers. He was supposed to be the Director of the operation, but he still had a lot to learn. The loss of the Millennium Man had come too soon.

“Let’s see, a man that can read everyone else’s mind, even from great distances suddenly appeared in the midst of an enemy regime? They would know all of our secrets and every move we were going to make before we made it. It would be a catastrophe. The very thought makes me shudder. We had better hope that they don’t do that. They have always made them here in the North America. We had one from Canada once. Kidnapping him in a foreign country and sneaking him across the border was a feat, let me tell you. Hopefully the aliens will pick a younger man this time. We seem to only get twenty years out of the Millennium Men we get, almost to the day.”

“I wasn’t here when we found the last one. I don’t know how to go about it,” Phil admitted.

“Any weird newspaper headlines about abductions or UFOs in the sky have to be followed up on in great detail. We have to capture the new Millennium Man before he figures out how to use the new power he is given. Otherwise he will know you are coming and you will never catch up with him.”

“When should I start looking?” Phil asked.

Dr. Allred looked down at his watch. “Now. As a matter of fact, I would not be going to bed tonight, if I were you.”

Phil got out his clipboard and jotted down a note about looking for UFOs and reported abductions. He then rushed up to his office and turned on his computer and started scanning the internet.

Dr. Allred also went to his office, but instead of scanning the internet he got on the phone and called his friend in the Air Force, General Morgan. “Hi, Fred, you know those blue radar blips that you are not supposed to talk about?”

“Yes?”

“I need you to track them and send me locations for any of them that stopped for more than ten minutes.”

There was silence over the phone for a few seconds and then the General said, “He’s dead, then?” It wasn’t the sound of sadness in his voice, but more of an annoyed sound.

“Yes, he’s gone.”

“I will send you the data.”