INTRODUCTION
colonel
Donor
This story covers interactions of four different timelines. It was originally posted in the Writers’ Forum under Project Infinity | alternatehistory.com. There is the Alpha timeline which is OTL but set mostly in the 2040s so as to avoid issues with current politics. The Delta and Beta timelines are taken respectively from prior postings in this forum at https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ublican-in-1912-4-parts-final-version.546689/ and
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-be-had-the-conflict-not-gone-nuclear.531895/.
PROJECT INFINITY
Camp David Presidential Retreat Maryland, USA 1000 hours EST 15 December 2040 (Beta Earth)
Robert Brunk, the outgoing Secretary of Energy, was nervously tapping his armrest while waiting to brief the President-Elect, on the country’s most secret project. He was glad to be leaving government service but was also melancholy about the prospect of no longer knowing of developments in what he considered the biggest discovery in human history. They were in a rustic cabin and the room had a large fireplace with comfortable furnishings. The Secretary and his fellow briefers sat in overstuffed chairs arrayed around an oval wooden table. If not for the large tabbed black binders on the table in front of each chair one would think they were in a ski lodge. The one unoccupied chair was meant for the President-Elect who entered the room precisely on-time.
The Secretary and the other briefers quickly stood to face her. She, like the briefers, was dressed in what could best be described as winter casual attire. As requested, she was alone and seemed quite at ease. The Secretary spoke first, “Madame President, thank you for taking time out of your transition to attend this briefing. I believe you know Admiral James Roberts, the head of Cyber-Command, and this is Dr. Maria Hernandez, the Acting Director of Project Infinity.”
Patricia Townsend asked everyone to be seated and reminded the Secretary that she was still only the President-Elect, but added she would go with the title Madame President, if only to save a couple of syllables. Townsend asked why the President wasn’t there, and the Secretary explained the outgoing Commander-in-Chief preferred to let her be briefed so she could make any decisions on how to proceed without being prejudiced by comments he might make, but he would certainly come after the briefing if she wished.
Noting the lack of any electronic devices and the large briefing books, President-Elect Townsend asked if the briefing was going to be done using only tools from the last century. She was surprised when the answer was yes. Even more surprising was the news that following the briefing the contents of the briefing books would be burned in the fireplace heating the room.
When the President-Elect asked why her nominee for Secretary of Energy was not present it was explained that even though the Secretary-Designate had full security clearances the current President preferred Townsend only read in other parties after she had assumed office. Dr. Hernandez was the first to brief, and the President-Elect asked her if she could give her some personal background. Dr. Hernandez responded that she should start by explaining she was born on another Earth.
The President-Elect turned slightly toward the Secretary with what could best be described as a scowl saying, “Were it not for the presence of Admiral Roberts I would assume this was one of the thankfully soon to be former President’s elaborate practical jokes. Also, even he isn’t that big a dick, so I’ll assume this is real, but if not fess up right now.” The Secretary looked like he was going to throw up, while the Admiral simply appeared quite uncomfortable. Stifling a giggle, Dr. Hernandez chose to respond, “Madame President, I can assure you this is no joke; I am from one of three other similar Earth’s which this world has the ability to communicate with and travel to.”
When the President-Elect asked if the project was a proof of the multiverse Dr. Hernandez was impressed. Most people took longer to accept the truth of her statements, never mind immediately citing the theory behind Project Infinity. Hernandez then gave a little more of her background, explaining that she had been born on September 11, 2001, in New York City, which was an infamous date in United States history on her world due to terrorist attacks killing thousands in New York City and Washington, D.C. (not this world’s Washington City, Maryland).
The Doctor held her breath hoping the President-Elect didn’t storm out, as she explained the project only partially proved the multiverse theory, because, other than her home, which has been designated Alpha Earth, the other worlds in contact were created due to changes made as a result of time travel from Alpha Earth, or the President-Elects own world known as Beta Earth. Once again, the President-Elect surprised the briefers by simply stating she then assumed the other two Earth’s were Gamma and Delta Earth. This was confirmed and Townsend was directed to the four-page executive summary at the beginning of her briefing book.
It was explained that in August 2029 on Alpha Earth the United States military was trying the first test of a system using quantum entanglement to allow instantaneous communication no matter how far apart the entangled particles were. Hernandez explained that the test was successful beyond all expectations and appeared to allow not just communication but transportation or teleportation of matter. Dr. Hernandez explained that was when the Department of Energy took the lead on the project in her world, where it is known as Project Gypsy. By 2031 small objects had been teleported successfully. This was followed by lab animals who suffered no ill effects, and in June 2032 the first human traveled via teleportation. The energy curve for matter teleportation was such that it was not commercially viable to have everyone get rid of their automobiles, but transporting supplies and people to bases throughout the solar system was certainly a possibility.
Just such a test was being conducted on February 26, 2034, when the United States on Alpha Earth was attempting to teleport supplies to their new Moon Base. During the test the transmitter received interference from a weather satellite, but it was determined the satellite was actually orbiting Earth on January 22, 1967 – precisely 67 years 35 days 4 hours 6 minutes and 11 seconds earlier. It became clear there was entanglement of particles not only across space, but time as well.
Subsequent tests involved sending microsatellites into orbit using Project Gypsy, confirming the date by scanning the constellations from orbit. Attempts to access other times generally failed, but adjusting the power did allow sending satellites back 134 years 70 days and change or double the first “jump.” There were variances of less than a day depending on where the target was in the leap year cycle. Further, even though the Alphas had been able to establish a link to January 1967 the link moved forward in time with them, so that as a month passed in the Alpha of 2034, a month passed in the time they could link to, be it 1967 or 1900. The micro-satellites had consistent communication with the point of departure, and homing devices allowed retrieval without incident. The next question was whether and when to try and send humans back.
Townsend was about to interrupt Dr. Hernandez when there was a knock at the door. The Marine guard indicated lunch was ready, and orderlies brought in what the briefers and the President-Elect had selected from the menus left in their respective cabins that morning. After leaving fresh water, coffee and soft drinks the orderlies exited and what was turning from a briefing into a dialogue continued.
The President-Elect commented that it was obvious humans were in fact sent back in time and she could do without the drama, but questioned why the experiments progressed so quickly, asking whether human life on Alpha Earth was not as important as it was on her own Earth. She also asked why her world wasn’t Alpha. Maria Hernandez smiled, and sincerely complimented the President-Elect on her insight. She explained that her Earth – Alpha Earth, was the Earth that, after developing time travel, directly or indirectly created the other three Earths or timelines, including the Beta Earth they were presently occupying.
As to why the experiments proceeded so quickly, it was because from 2022 to 2038 Alpha Earth was involved in a series of ever more vicious wars which ultimately drew in the United States and her allies, and even though it was accepted as fact that they could not alter their own timeline less they create a paradox, the government believed they might be able to refine the process to have shorter jumps. This would have made Project Gypsy into a valuable intelligence tool, and perhaps even a weapon, by leaving weapons hidden in the past that could be activated in the present.
On January 7, 2035, Project Gypsy sent the first human time traveler back to December 3, 1967. The traveler was deposited in a clear desert area in Nevada and stayed just long enough to take astronomical readings to confirm the date and activate the return signal. He returned without incident, and there were a half dozen similar tests over the following month. Shortly thereafter small teams of two to four chrononauts were traveling back to the late 1960s and early 1900s for periods ranging from two days to a week.
It quickly became clear there was no way to shorten or lengthen a jump, and it was deemed impracticable to leave any kind of weapon behind due to the danger in transporting it, and out of concern about discovery. There were no indications of any effects on Alpha Earth’s timeline and, given the lack of utility toward the war effort, the United States President decided to suspend further travel absent some indication any other power had its own program. They were allowed two final jumps solely for purposes of historical research.
A retired Harvard Professor of 20th Century History named James McCarthy traveled with a security escort to 1968 for three weeks to gather data on the 1968 Presidential election when Nixon defeated Humphrey. Unknown to the security escort, McCarthy had a conversation with Henry Kissinger where he evidently broke security. The United States in 1969 then acted differently than it had in the Alpha timeline, and the result was the Sino-Soviet War and the Beta timeline. Not realizing what had happened, McCarthy was permitted to go to 1902, where shortly before retrieval he left the security officer and removed his tracker/retrieval device. There were attempts to locate McCarthy, but they met with no success, and as it appeared there was no damage to the timeline, the Project was quietly suspended. McCarthy had in fact become a confidant of Teddy Roosevelt and encouraged him to run again in 1908. This created the Gamma timeline. The Alpha timeline did not become aware of the other two timelines until 2038.
Admiral Roberts was preparing to brief on the discovery of the other timelines when the President-Elect interrupted saying she knew a Professor McCarthy at Harvard – was it the same man? Dr. Hernandez explained that as McCarthy was born in 1968 it was another version of the same person. To make matters more complicated, the McCarthy who Townsend knew was also sent back in time to 1905 for historical research by Beta Earth’s Project Infinity. The Gamma timeline had already been formed by his Alpha counterpart’s actions, but the world McCarthy traveled to in 1905 shared the same history as both the Alpha and Beta Earths to that point in time. The Beta McCarthy was unable to get close to Roosevelt before he left office in 1909, but subsequently gave him enough advice to allow for a successful return to the Presidency as a Republican in 1913. This led to the forming of the Delta Earth timeline.
The President-Elect remarked that this was giving her a headache, but before proceeding she wanted to write out some specific questions.
Dr. Hernandez had sat in on almost a dozen similar briefings on Alpha Earth, Delta Earth, and here on Beta Earth. Usually those being briefed were in groups made up of military and scientific personnel new to the Project, and the briefers weren’t Cabinet Secretaries or Flag Officers. Maria made a point of personally giving many of the briefings, and everyone had questions, almost endless questions. The Director was usually able to refer the parties to their briefing book with an instruction to save questions for the end, but you simply didn’t say that to the woman who would soon be President of the United States.
Inevitably everyone’s first question was whether they had an analogue on one of the other Earths. In most cases the answer was no. On Gamma and Delta Earths no one born after the early 1930s had an analogue to anyone on Alpha or Beta Earth, or indeed with each other. As between Alpha and Beta Earths anyone born before 1968 had an analogue, until one or the other passed away. There were some exact analogues after the split, but given the changes wrought on Beta Earth from the Sino-Soviet War virtually no one born after the early 1970s had an exact analogue.
The President-Elect once again surprised Dr. Hernandez with her questions. She handed them to the Secretary who read them aloud:
- Why is someone from Alpha Earth Director of a project on Beta Earth?
- Is the existence of the other timelines known to the general public on any of the other Earths?
- Do we know or have any theories on why jumps and “double jumps” are locked into just over 67 and 134 years respectively? Have there been attempts to go back further, or into the future? For that matter do we have any indication of jumps coming from the future?
- Are you confident there have not been other timelines created that just haven’t been detected as yet?
- Most important – what is this costing, what does MY United States get out of the program, and what do you propose I do once I take office?
Dr. Hernandez continued as neither of the men in the room seemed anxious to jump in to answer the President-Elect’s questions. The Director began by addressing the last question of whether there was another Patricia Townsend in one of the other timelines. The President-Elect was not surprised that she had no analogue, but seemed taken aback when told that her father on Alpha Earth was killed in Vietnam in 1971 before having met her mother. When it was explained that, with no Sino-Soviet War on Alpha Earth, the North Vietnamese regime didn’t collapse, and United States involvement continued into 1973 with South Vietnam falling in 1975. Patricia Townsend had prided herself on having an analytical mind, and being able to make decisions divorced from emotion, but her voice noticeably cracked when she held up a hand to stop Dr. Hernandez as she said, “So, I would not exist but for a war that literally killed hundreds of millions of people, and that war would not have happened but for an offhand comment of an asshole history professor.” Admiral Roberts finally spoke up, “Yes, Madame President, that is correct. You’ve heard of the butterfly effect, or the term ‘For want of a nail the battle was lost,’ that’s what we’re dealing with here.”
The President-Elect took just a moment to digest what she had been told and motioned Dr. Hernandez to continue. The Director went on to address her own presence on Beta Earth, explaining that there were exchanges of personnel between the various Earths to facilitate sharing of information and resources. She explained she was only the Acting Director of Infinity and would be formally replaced by a Beta when she returned to her own timeline.
Hernandez noted that Alpha Earth had become aware of the other timelines starting with Gamma Earth in February 2038, followed by Delta Earth in April 2038 and Beta Earth in September 2038. Gamma Earth, in its experiments became aware of the other timelines in March 2036, before it even attempted time travel. The Director then referred Townsend to the diagrams and captions at Tab C of her briefing book.
The Admiral then took over explaining how, even though Alpha’s Project Gypsy time-travel components had been dormant for some time, they still did monitoring and experimentation. In 2038 they “fired the system back up” once the last of their major wars appeared won. The President-Elect read along with the explanation in her briefing book explaining that all the teams sent out during the active phase of the time-travel component had left hidden camouflaged beacon-recorders at predetermined locations. These devices were extremely small and would self-destruct if handled without having received a specific cipher signal. After each of the teams sent back had returned, the devices were recovered and downloaded. Two devices were not found. They were of course the ones left in the Beta and Gamma timelines. It was assumed that the rogue Professor McCarthy had destroyed or deactivated them, but in point of fact they existed only in the new timelines. This was discovered when the Project was again running, and a signal was received from one of devices which was evidently still recording. It was subsequently determined that the device was broadcasting from another timeline – specifically the Gamma Earth timeline.
The Gamma version of Gypsy/Infinity was called C+, and it confirmed the existence of other timelines shortly after the Project began in 2036. Gamma Earth had a distinct advantage, as Professor McCarthy had left a detailed message outlining his knowledge of Project Gypsy. The message would have been written off as a madman’s rant, but for the fact that McCarthy was able to show them how to activate and deactivate the beacon/recorder which clearly represented a futuristic technology. Since McCarthy was not a scientist, he was unable to give useful insight into reverse engineering the device. The Gamma Earth Teddy Roosevelt of 1913 classified the message with instructions to give it to his successor on January 7, 2035 (the date of the first-time travel from Alpha Earth). Project C+ started shortly after that point, and though they were unable to time travel, they were able to monitor signals from the other three timelines.
When Alpha Earth reactivated Project Gypsy in 2038 the surprise they got from receiving a signal from a device they left in what appeared to be another timeline, was quickly replaced by utter shock when their monitors showed a dour gentleman identifying himself as the Director of Project C+ asking to speak to his counterpart.
Dr. Hernandez then took over again, explaining that she at that time was already part of the Alpha timeline’s Project Gypsy. There were numerous discussions between Alpha and Gamma Earth’s Gypsy/C+ personnel over the following weeks. It appeared at that time that Alpha was significantly ahead on time-travel and matter teleportation technology, while Gamma having had the benefit of access to Professor McCarthy’s beacon/recorder had made great leaps in communications as well as monitoring other timelines. At the time of initial contact with the Alphas, the Gammas did not reveal the existence of Beta or Delta Earths. A suggestion was made for Alpha Earth to send a team to Gamma Earth to exchange technology. After Marine Corps Captain Marty Valenti safely made a trip from Alpha to Gamma and back, a team from the Alphas was sent to coordinate with the Gammas, as they called themselves.
Dr. Hernandez repeated what her government had told her - that it became immediately obvious to the Alphas that the Gammas weren’t sharing all they had, but the Alphas still obtained valuable new information. It was first believed that the Gammas called themselves that based on their program being designated Project C+. It was only after the Alphas on their own discovered Delta Earth that the Gammas acknowledged they had already known about both Delta and Beta Earth. This caused some tension between the Alphas and Gammas, but as the Gamma timeline had been by far the most violent of the four timelines their secrecy was attributed by the Alphas, and later the other timelines, as being a cultural quirk.
Secretary Brunk finally decided to speak for the first time since the briefing had started. “Madame President, let me take a moment to answer some of your questions directly.” He then explained that no timeline’s general populace knew of Project Infinity, Project Gypsy, Project C+, or the Delta timeline’s Operation Reach. In each timeline the respective program was controlled by the United States, and in the Beta and Delta timelines the information was shared respectively with the Federated Commonwealth and Imperial Federation.
It was only recently determined that other timelines were created in almost every jump, but when changes were generally insubstantial the timelines merged back into the Alpha or Beta timelines. The only merged timeline where it appears there was a significant historical change was one where Alpha Earth's Nelson Mandela was imprisoned by the repressive South African regime, and subsequently became South African President winning the Nobel Peace prize. In a timeline dubbed Epsilon, Nelson Mandela died in prison.
The Secretary continued:
I bring this up now before addressing costs to explain that, based on information garnered by the Alphas, the Epsilon timeline was created by the Gammas and merged into Alpha by the Gammas. This directly contradicts the Gamma protestations that they have not developed their own ability to travel through time. It is also believed the Gammas have used their technology to create the time limits on jumps in the other timelines, while the Gammas themselves can jump back in time, without our jump limitations. They also seem to have created interference that either prevents jumps from the future back into any of the timelines, or if they do occur the interference forecloses their detection. They are currently working to prevent communication or travel between the Alpha, Beta or Delta timelines. We think they may be trying to get our technology and resources and then merge us into a much more backward timeline. We don’t think they know we know, but they have in essence declared war on us, and that will impact costs as well as what you should do.
Dr. Hernandez didn’t contradict the Secretary even though she knew from a personal contact with an Alpha presently in the Gamma timeline that the Gammas had not in fact been able to accomplish time travel. In fact, the Deltas likely could do it, but from her own observations she believed their assurances that they had not attempted time travel. She had surmised that the Epsilon timeline had most likely been created by the Betas, but that her government was hiding it for some reason.
The President-Elect asked what all of the outlined assumptions were based on, and the Secretary responded it came from information supplied by Alpha representatives. He concluded by asking the President-Elect if she would like a brief rundown from the General on the history of each timeline.
The President-Elect agreed that a short history lesson would be helpful. She examined the appendix in her briefing book that outlined the differences in each timeline’s history. Her world was logically called Beta Earth because it appears to have been the first continuing separate timeline created by the Alpha travels. The history of the Alpha and Beta timelines did not diverge until the Sino-Soviet War in 1969.
It appears the Soviet leader in the Alpha timeline had sent a message to the Americans asking what the United States would do if the USSR employed a nuclear weapon to settle the border dispute they were having with China. In that timeline Nixon let the Chinese know of the query. The result was the Chinese backing off, and it was the first step in Alpha Earth’s President Nixon having a rapprochement with Communist China. If only that had happened on her world. In the Beta timeline the message from the Soviets and the United States reaction happened the same way, but for some reason occurred months earlier. It resulted in Mao believing there would be a Soviet nuclear attack, so he ordered a first strike. She knew her own history all too well. The massive Chinese casualties, and subsequent diaspora, followed by the Soviet Civil war and the other nuclear exchanges in the Mid-East and on the Indian Sub-continent. Alpha Earth did not have the hundreds of millions of casualties that her world suffered, but North Vietnam never collapsed, and the Alpha version of her own father died there as a result. There was a British Commonwealth in the Alpha timeline, but no Commonwealth Federation. Still the Alphas had no new nuclear exchanges until the last decade, and they were now getting technical advice from the other timelines on cleaning up from that radiological disaster.
The Delta timeline was created from the Beta Earth’s Project Infinity. The divergence from the Alpha and Beta timeline appears to have been Teddy Roosevelt winning a third term as a Republican in 1912. This resulted in the United States buying Baja from Mexico, as well as Greenland from the Danes. By the end of the 20th century those territories, along with Puerto Rico, had obtained statehood, with Greenland’s population surprisingly approaching a half million. There were a series of wars throughout the 20th century, but the United States actually mediated an end to the Great War, forming an “Inter-Continental Congress” in the process. There was a financial panic in the 1930s, but nothing approaching the Great Depression. No other conflict approached the size of the Alpha-Beta timelines World War II, but there were nuclear exchanges. The Deltas had an Imperial Federation formed that was analogous to the Beta timeline’s Federation Commonwealth., but it came into being decades earlier, 1948 to be specific. The Deltas like the Betas had worlds much more economically and politically consolidated than the Alpha timeline.
The Gamma timeline was considerably different from the others. The briefing book indicated that the facts delineated were presumed accurate, but they relied solely on information provided to the Alphas by the Gammas. Since the Gammas were so secretive and didn’t allow Alphas outside their Project C+ facilities, it was deemed possible that some or much of the history may consist of intentional misinformation. The Gamma history departs from the other timelines at some point before 1908 when Teddy Roosevelt ran for a third term. The United States was much more aggressive, with a continued expansion of the American military, especially the Navy. The Great War started in a similar fashion as in the other timelines, but it lasted much longer. This was because of a United States invasion of Mexico in 1910, which resulted in the annexation of Baja, Chihuahua, and Sonora. The Americans delayed sending ground forces into Europe due to having to maintain a large occupation force in Mexico and in various Caribbean nations. When the War did end in 1920, France was almost completely occupied and the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires had all collapsed. Germany had been cut off from colonies outside Europe by the American and Royal Navies. There was an uneasy peace wherein Germany dominated the continent absorbing Austria and other German-speaking lands (less Switzerland). What followed was a cold war between Germany and the Anglo-American Alliance. From 1928 to 1939 there was an economic Depression that was far worse than the Great Depression. There was no Hitler, perhaps because the Germans turned left instead of right. Communists took over throughout the continent and the socialist policies only made the Depression worse. There were a series of conflicts that began in early 1939 with most of continental Europe aligned with Soviet Russia and Japan, against an Anglo-American Alliance and China. Eventually the Germans deployed nuclear weapons against the United Kingdom, wiping out the Royal Family and most of Parliament in 1946. The Americans retaliated in kind and by 1950 had succeeded in pummeling most of the continent as well as much of Asia.
The history provided by the Gammas ended there, but the material seemed to indicate that in the Gamma Earth of 2040 the United States had taken a page from ancient Rome. There was a United States of America, consisting of the same fifty states in the Alpha and Beta 1969, plus eight Canadian states (combining PEI and New Brunswick, while excluding an independent Quebec), and Northern territories including Greenland. Baja, Chihuahua, and Sonora are also states. The capitol is in Ottawa. There is a United States of the Atlantic consisting of five states in the British Isles including Ireland plus Iceland (which was evidently occupied by the United States in one of the wars), and includes various island territories, with a capitol in a rebuilt London. Then there is the United States of Australasia consisting of Australia and New Zealand, plus Antarctic territories, small Pacific and Indian Ocean islands, with a capitol in Canberra. The Capitol of the three constituent parts is in Washington, D.C. Many former American or British possessions including Quebec, the Philippines, Malta, New Guinea and other nations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, Caribbean, and the Americas are independent, but have the status of United States Associates. It is unclear what their exact relationship is with the various USAs. No information was provided on Europe or other areas of Gamma Earth of 2040. The briefing book indicated it is believed the Gammas may have withheld information because radiological damage on Gamma Earth is still very severe, and much more persistent than even Beta Earth experienced following the Sino-Soviet War.
The President-Elect joked “Well, I know where I’m not vacationing next year.” The others joined in her laugh, but they would soon get down to serious business.
The President-Elect asked if she could meet representatives from the Gamma and Delta timelines and was informed that a summit of sorts was being discussed for the United States Presidents from each timeline, as a secure four-way audio-visual communication system was now in place. The outgoing Beta and Alpha Presidents had each elected not to go ahead with the summit since their successors would be in place in January 2041. President-Elect Townsend agreed the Project Infinity Team could convey that she would agree to participate in a summit at some point in late February 2041.
In the meantime, Townsend wanted to get more information on the other three timelines. When told there were representatives from each timeline working on Project Infinity, she asked how integrated they were into the Project. Dr. Hernandez explained that except for herself the representatives acted more or less as Ambassadors. She had been asked to temporarily head Project Infinity to get it on track with the Alpha timeline’s Project Gypsy and expected to be “home for Christmas.” She had performed a similar role for the Deltas, but the Gammas had politely refused her services (at least that was what her Alpha contact on Gamma Earth had said). The President-Elect wanted to meet with the other timeline representatives. It was decided that shortly after her inauguration they would be brought to a secure location for a meet and greet.
The rest of the briefing did little to assuage a growing feeling of Townsend that the Gammas, and perhaps the all too benevolent Alphas, represented a threat to her world. Security seemed totally geared toward preventing people on Beta Earth learning of Project Infinity, with little thought as to whether they should be sharing so much with the other timelines. It was clear from the briefing that Beta Earth had the most advanced technology in radiological amelioration. This tech largely rose from the Beta United States Agency for Scientific Research and Development (ASRD) chartered in the aftermath of the Sino-Soviet War. The technology was being freely with the other timelines. Townsend wondered what exactly the Betas got out of the exchanges. She was disappointed when aside from a few helpful gadgets the biggest contribution of the Alphas seems to have been in the form of a series of books from the Alphas called Game of Thrones (which answered her question as to why they printed the whole series all at once). There was also a lot of other comedic and dramatic content coming from the Alphas. When asked what literature the Alphas were taking from the Beta timeline, Dr. Hernandez confessed that most Alphas found much of Beta entertainment “depressing.” Much more helpful and practical was the rechargeable, long life, low cost, sodium and zinc battery technology provided by the Deltas.
Townsend decided her first priority as President would be to increase safeguards on information going from the Beta timeline to the other Earths. Beta Earth had not yet shared their recent breakthrough on developing a cost-effective fusion reactor, and she wanted to keep it that way for now. She was especially concerned that the Gammas were not forthcoming with more information, and wanted an in-depth assessment of whether they were really trying to steal tech and merge or fold the other timelines, and if so to what end.
The Secretary informed the President-Elect that the outgoing President ordered that she be given full cooperation and carte blanche on ordering action on Project Infinity even before inauguration. Townsend silently admitted to herself that the soon to be former President wasn’t quite the asshole she thought he was. The President-Elect said she wanted increased security, by setting up a panel to scrutinize and approve any tech transfers to the other timelines, and in no way would any additional technology or research on the recent fusion breakthrough be made without her explicit approval. Since Roberts was going to be continuing in his current role in the new Administration, Townsend indicated he would be her point of contact. In the first week after the Inauguration she wanted a meeting with him, her own Secretary of Energy, and various other individuals she would identify later, but definitely including Intelligence and Security personnel. Finally, before meeting with the representatives from the other timelines, she wanted to meet with as many people as possible from the Beta timeline who have visited the other timelines, and she didn't want Gammas getting any greater access to Beta Earth than the Betas were getting on Gamma Earth.
The White House Situation Room - 2003 hours EST 24 January 2041(Beta Earth)
The three military officers and two civilians all stood when President Townsend entered the room with the newly confirmed Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. After the President motioned to them, they each took seats around a utilitarian conference table with comfortable ergonomic chairs. The room had all the latest technology needed to brief the Commander-In-Chief or contact virtually anyone in the world, but today, except for the room’s artificial lighting, ventilation system, and an old-style overhead projector, all the tech was turned off. As usual all personal electronic devices had been checked with the Marine Guard at the small desk outside the conference room. The in-house tech had been turned off out of an abundance of caution, in that it was thought to be possible (but not likely) that one or more of the other timelines might be able to tap into virtually any electronic communication on the planet.
The President was seated at the end of the of the conference table. The civilians were on her left and military officers on her right. Since, other than her being at the head of the table, there was no assigned seating, Townsend wondered for just a moment if that was a coincidence, or some protocol unknown to her. She would have to remember to ask one of her aides later. To her immediate left was Janice Milner, the new Secretary of Energy, followed by CIA Director Thomas Li, and Dr. William Hansen, the recently elevated Director of Project Infinity. On the President’s right were Space Corps Admiral James Roberts, the head of Cyber Command, Navy Vice Admiral Maureen Callahan, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Army Major General Jorge Lopez, who had recently been placed in charge of internal security at Project Infinity. The President would have liked her choice for Secretary of Defense to have been present, but his nomination was being slow walked in the Senate. Milner and Li had only been briefed on Project Infinity in this very room a few hours earlier.
Townsend addressed the group, “We all know why we’re here, so let us get right into it. I would like to be up to date before meeting with the other timeline representatives tomorrow. General Roberts was on the team that initially briefed me and, except for Dr. Hansen, the others in this room are here at my direction. So, Dr. Hansen - tell me how you came to replace Dr. Hernandez at Project Infinity.”
Hansen started to rise but sat again when the President waved him down. The Director explained that he had been with the Project from the beginning and had actually traveled back in time. After Beta Earth had been contacted by the Alphas, and exchanged representatives, it was deemed helpful to have Dr. Hernandez come over to aid us as she had the Deltas. Hansen explained her position was always advisory, and he formally took on the title of Director when she returned to the Alpha timeline. The President pointed out that in her initial briefing she had been told Gamma Earth was first to confirm the existence of other timelines, and asked what they told the Betas at the time of first contact. The Director explained that the Gammas were the first to detect the other timelines, but simply monitored the Beta and Delta Earth communications until the Alphas made contact with the Deltas, followed by the Betas. Hansen tried to assure the President that he was fully up to date on the Project, and available to answer any questions. To that end he gave an update in almost mind numbing detail on Project Infinity. Dr. Hansen utilized the overhead projector to show everything from organization charts to power consumption projections for the next year. Townsend interrupted the presentation and thanked him. Hansen couldn’t help but feel she was annoyed.
Knowing her two political appointees had only just been briefed on the Project, the President turned next to the military side of the table. Admiral Callahan spoke first. She detailed the coordination that had been done with Admiral Roberts and Cyber Command to expand capabilities to monitor transmissions made in the other timelines, which was already yielding significantly more information on the Gammas. When challenged on the ethics of eavesdropping by Dr. Hansen, Callahan pointed out that the Gammas were definitely already eavesdropping on the other timelines, and she was personally convinced the Alphas were doing the same, with the Deltas being an open question. DIA was prepared to turn over any ops as directed to CIA, or to operate in conjunction with them as ordered. General Roberts then confirmed that if ordered they were able to insert operatives into the other timelines with “high confidence” that the teleportation could be masked.
General Lopez spoke next, outlining what security measures he had instituted in the past two weeks. Explaining the civilian scientists being naturally collegial were resistant to the escorts he had placed with each of the other timelines' representatives, he also indicated, “No offense to Admiral Roberts,” but Space Corps personnel in Cyber Command, who were the military’s own scientific and tech community, weren’t much better. After interviews with the visitors and Project Infinity staff it became obvious that, while the other timelines might not yet have the technology behind the Beta’s recent fusion breakthrough, they were all well aware of it. Dr. Hansen objected, calling the escorts minders and emphasizing the need for trust. It was then that Lopez pointed out that on Dr. Hansen’s time travel trip he accompanied the infamous Dr. McCarthy and lost him, thus creating the Delta timeline.
The briefing continued for another hour. The President was not yet prepared to order a surreptitious insertion into another timeline but made clear she was keeping options open. They adjourned, and Admiral Callahan asked if she could have a word with the President in private. Callahan explained that the President needed to know two things going forward. “First, we might, and I emphasize might, have a legitimate defector from Gamma Earth. Second, we almost certainly have at least one mole from another timeline here on Beta Earth.”
The White House Oval Office - 1430 hours EST 25 January 2041(Beta Earth)
The small coterie of visitors exchanging pleasantries with President Townsend could have been mistaken as being any one of the dozens of groups that came to have short meet and greets with every sitting President, but of course these people were different. Most of the visitors had come from one of the three other Earths that the President had first learned existed after winning election late in 2040. There were three representatives from each timeline, who met the President without the escorts that had recently been assigned to each of them. Also present was CIA Director Li and Dr. William Hansen, the head of Project Infinity.
The President hadn’t really heard anything new in this short meet and greet, but she had merely wanted to see if she could tell from talking to her guests that they weren’t from her world. She had met earlier in the day with a number of Beta Earth representatives who had traveled to the other timelines. Townsend found herself now silently agreeing with the assessments from a young man who had dealings with people from each timeline and had actually visited Delta Earth. The scientist had commented that speaking with people in the other timelines was like talking with someone from a different generation. She found this especially true with the Deltas, who were friendly, but much more formal than the others. The Alphas seemed to fit in with everyone, while the Gammas were polite without being very forthcoming.
The representatives had varied ethnicities, with five men, three woman, and one person the Alphas explained was “binary.” All three of the Gammas were white males, but they were United States citizens from Wales, Alberta, and New Zealand respectively. While the United States in the Beta and Delta timelines each had much closer relations than the Alphas with Federated Commonwealth (or what the Deltas called the Imperial Federation), only in the Gamma timeline had there been a true merger with large parts of the former British Empire.
As the meeting was breaking up, Bill Foster, the senior Gamma representative from Alberta, complained of chest pain. Within two minutes a wheelchair was brought into the Oval Office by a Navy Corpsman accompanied by the sick man’s escort. The others in the room were asked to be patient while Dr. Foster was taken to the White House Medical Unit. Foster assured his fellow Gammas that he was already starting to feel better but would go to the infirmary just to be sure.
On arriving in the infirmary Foster was wheeled to a small alcove just past the pharmacy. The Corpsman withdrew, and out came Vice Admiral Maureen Callahan and Major General Jorge Lopez. They were both in civilian clothing. Lopez spoke – “You slipped a note to your prior escort asking to defect, but warning that no electronic communications could be trusted. You obviously still want to defect, because you followed the instruction in the note your new escort gave you this morning to feign chest pain at the end of today’s meeting. This room is a Faraday Cage, so we should be able to speak freely. By the way your new escort here is FBI Special Agent Terrence Washington. Now, why do you want to defect and, if so, what can you tell us about possible moles or leaks on Beta?”
The Goddard Research Center, Greenbelt Maryland - 2003 hours EST 5 February 2041 (Beta Earth)
Special Agent Terrence Washington sat in a small private dining room blocked off from a cafeteria at the Goddard Research Center. He was waiting for Dr. William “call me Bill” Foster to return from the restroom. Since the meeting at the White House where Bill’s desire to defect had been confirmed, they had set up a program wherein each representative lunched in private with the escort assigned to them at least twice per week. This was ostensibly to build a rapport, so the representatives would not feel they were being guarded – which they were. Harris knew his escort was a Special Agent with the FBI; what he didn’t know was that the agent was a Counter-Intelligence Specialist in the Bureau assigned to this case precisely because his Special Agent in Charge (SAC) opined “Terry is the best bullshit detector in the business.”
The first meeting at the White House had necessarily been short so as not to arouse suspicion among the other timeline representatives. These luncheons were being done with all the representatives and escorts, but none besides Washington and his charge were aware the room had been turned into a Faraday Cage. At their first meet Foster had agreed to continue to work as a representative for the Gammas, with a commitment to share intelligence in exchange for a promise not to return him to the Gamma timeline against his wishes. Somewhat concerning was the quick agreement of Foster to the arrangement, but information on almost microscopic monitoring devices placed at Goddard had proved true, so for now he was given the benefit of the doubt. Washington was planning to push Foster today to flesh out what he knew and what he could offer in much more detail.
The Goddard Research Center on Beta Earth was originally the Goddard Space Flight Center and remained important to NASA even after Cape Canaveral in Florida and The Johnson Space Center in Texas came into being. That changed when, in the wake of the devastation of the Sino-Soviet War, President Nixon created the Agency for Scientific Research and Development (ASRD) and placed it under the newly formed Department of Energy and Science. ASRD in many ways supplanted NASA, which saw an almost decade long moratorium on manned space flights following the success of Apollo 11 in July 1969.
The ASRD was charged with using science to ameliorate the effects of the radiological disaster caused by the first conflict between nuclear powers. In meeting that mandate the agency scooped up a large number of researchers, medical professionals, engineers and technicians from various disciplines. This included a fair number of suddenly under-utilized NASA engineers and scientists. It was quickly decided that the Goddard Space Flight Center could be re-purposed to accommodate ASRD. The proximity to Washington was also a major factor in the decision to locate the ASRD headquarters at Goddard.
When the Beta’s began Project Infinity, Goddard was a logical choice for its location. There was already a large pool of technologically capable people, and large portions of the campus were already deemed secure areas. The Project would be just one of several classified programs at Goddard. Unlike the Manhattan Project in World War II that required three main sites spread across the nation, Project Infinity research and development were conducted almost solely at Goddard, only requiring the Super-Collider in Texas to conduct a handful of tests to confirm certain experimental predictions. None of the timelines used the same location for their analogues to Infinity. The Alphas’ used their version of Area 51 in Nevada for their project Gypsy, while the Deltas used their version of the Super-Collider in Texas for Operation Reach, and the Gammas only confirmed that their Project C+ was in the Australian Outback (without explanation as to how they resourced it in such a remote area).
Foster approached the table with the wide grin that Washington thought was close to a smirk. The other Gammas were much more dour, Washington thought he preferred dour. The agent stood and shook Bill’s hand. The food came quickly and per Washington’s request a pitcher of water and pitcher of iced tea were left by the server to minimize interruptions. To Terry’s great surprise, Foster answered every almost question completely and without equivocation. There were some minor areas where Bill claimed ignorance, and Terry believed him.
Foster filled in a lot of the missing Gamma history. It was much more war torn than the Betas or Deltas imagined, and desperately in need of Beta tech and their procedures for radiological remediation. He confirmed there had been compromises in the Beta, Gamma, and Delta programs that inured to the benefit of the Alphas. The Betas had no leak per se, but Dr. Hernandez had garnered information for the Alphas temporary director of the Delta and Beta timeline’s projects “to get them up to speed.” Foster claimed it was Hernandez that had left monitoring devices and groomed useful idiots like current Project Infinity Director Hansen. When Washington pointed out that Dr. Hernandez had not filled in as Director of Operation Reach on Gamma Earth, Foster said that was just an outright lie. He went on to explain that much of the Alpha strategy was to make the Gammas the bad guys, so the Alphas could be seen as saviors. “The Gammas allow it because the Alphas contacted them first, and warned they were the only route to secure the tech needed to rebuild Gamma Earth. It turns out the last decade of war on Alpha Earth has put them in almost as bad a shape.”
Washington interrupted, “Dr. Foster – Bill -- how do we know you’re not just saying this to turn us against the Alphas and hide the Gammas’ own bad faith? For that matter, how do you even know what you say you know about the Alphas?” Harris responded, “My dear Terry, I am an Alpha." Washington thought to himself – that is definitely a smirk.
The Goddard Research Center, Greenbelt Maryland - 0635 hours EST 20 February 2041 (Beta Earth)
Special Agent Washington had been given a small windowless office in a sub-basement of the Aldrin Building on the Goddard Center Campus to prepare his report on the revelations of Dr. William “call me Bill” Foster. He had been providing regular updates, but a comprehensive report was required by the President before her upcoming video summit with her counterparts from the other timelines.
At least he was able to use a computer to prepare the document since Foster had provided the specs for a simple program to prevent what he termed “leakage.” The program was what the Alphas called an App, but on Beta Earth it was known as a B-line. The B-line worked in the background of electronic devices to prevent any unauthorized transmissions, while detecting eavesdropping attempts directed at the device and alerting the user to those attempts. Experts at Cyber Command had confirmed the B-line, dubbed Curtains, provided protection not only from eavesdropping across timelines, but made devices virtually un-hackable. It was far superior to any tech on Beta Earth and had the advantage of minimizing the need for encryption. Washington had worried that the B-line might actually be a Trojan horse that would capture all information on a device and transmit it clandestinely to the Alphas, Gammas or God knows where, but he was assured by the computer nerds that was not the case.
As Dr. Foster was a physicist, and not an engineer, Washington had been suspicious as to how he had come to have the specifications for the Curtains B-Line. Foster explained that he was given the specifications because B-Line also allowed secure communication across the timelines. Alpha representatives (including those pretending to be Gamma representatives) in each timeline had the specifications so they could in fact upload it onto Beta and Delta devices allowing Alphas to download information and monitor communications. Foster identified a half dozen Beta databases that had been compromised and stated that as Alphas coordinated their activities on Beta Earth, he was reasonably sure that his colleagues had not made other inroads. In response, the Betas had already subtly altered some key information on computers that had been used on their recent fusion breakthrough. From new questions being raised by the Alphas to the Betas it became clear that the Alphas did indeed have access they should not have had.
Washington had been instructed to put just what he had garnered from Foster in his report. The President wanted to know what Harris had said, what could be verified, what was unverified. Most importantly, was identifying anything that was demonstrably false. Washington was to leave his own opinions and impressions out of the body of the report, but the President specifically wanted those opinions contained in a separate addendum. The first draft of the report was completed, and Washington was rereading it before starting on the Addendum. He had to admit that while large portions of Bill’s story remained unverified, nothing Foster had provided had been shown to be false, or even misleading. Indeed, many important things such as the Curtains B-line not only proved true but provided more benefit to Beta Earth than anything garnered through regular exchanges between the timelines.
Terry Washington was surprised that he found himself uncomfortable sharing his thoughts and impressions regarding the would-be defector. He didn’t like Foster, but had to admit the man was smart. Terry found Foster grating and condescending while most others found Bill charming. Of course, few others knew that the friendly Dr. Foster, leader of the otherwise dour Gamma Earth representatives on Beta Earth, was actually an Alpha Earth spy. Perhaps Terry just didn’t like Bill because he had quickly figured out that Washington was a counter-intelligence agent. Foster explained that of course Terry appeared very “earnest,” but as the United States on Beta Earth had been so dominant for so long, its counter-intelligence skills were lacking as compared to Alpha Earth. “No offense,” Bill said, knowing full well that Terry would take offense.
While Bill was smart, Washington thought him reckless. For instance, Foster had taken a series of lectures given by a 20th century History Professor on Delta Earth, and a posthumously published letter of a Beta Earth Professor talking about effects of the Sino-Soviet War, and provided them to his superiors. He turned these works into useful tools to summarize the changes to the timelines, but then he turned around and published both works as alternate histories on Alpha Earth. To make matters worse he accessed the sites using the Curtains B-line (which the Alphas called the Crossover App). Washington included links to copies made and put into a Beta database.
Washington had to admit there was no reason not to proceed out of concern that Foster wasn’t telling the truth. Foster’s stated motivation was that Alpha Earth was in much worse shape than they had let on from their recent conflicts. Gamma was, if anything, worse, and he simply didn’t want to go back to either. Based on recommendations from Artificial Intelligence the Alphas had developed Project Gypsy, and created Beta and Gamma Earths. If Foster was being truthful, once the Alphas had seen time travel was possible, they proactively created the timelines. This was done in order to see if earlier nuclear conflicts could develop tech to allow the Alphas to rehabilitate their own world. The Alphas were surprised when the Beta Earth’s Project Infinity developed its own time travel capability, and inadvertently created the Delta timeline. The Beta’s Professor McCarthy really did give rise to the Delta timeline, but his Alpha analogue’s creation of the Beta and Gamma timelines being a rogue action was just an invention of the Alphas. McCarthy followed detailed instructions because the Alphas intended to create alternate timelines.
Foster was refusing to return to Alpha or Gamma Earth out of fear of not being allowed to leave again. The only way to positively confirm Foster’s revelations was to send someone to Alpha Earth. Foster indicated he could provide sufficient information to create a legend for an operative to travel secretly to Alpha Earth, along with contacts who would help, if they were promised transport to Beta Earth. Washington wrote that he was volunteering to be that operative.
The White House Oval Office - 1708 hours EST 27 February 2041 (Beta Earth)
President Townsend and a gaggle of her close advisors were discussing the just completed video summit between the United States Presidents from the four different timelines being coordinated on their Beta Earth through Project Infinity. Most summits merely formalized agreements already made by lower-level staffers, but in this case, since each version of the United States was severely limiting the access of representatives from the other timelines, there had been little staff work. Even so, the Presidents themselves did little to advance what they all saw as a minimalist agenda. Townsend felt the summit was little more than a get to know you session.
Fortunately, all the Presidents quickly agreed that beyond making a short introduction and referencing the agenda, Dr. Hernandez would not be heard from. Each of the Chief Executives would speak for themselves, albeit with frequent breaks to consult with advisors. All four Presidents were speaking from their own version of the White House. It was agreed that to start with opening statements would be made by the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Presidents in that order. Looking at the four-square display on the screen of the situation room, Townsend couldn’t help but think it reminded her of the display on the Thirties Dating B-line her younger sister had used a few years earlier.
Townsend’s briefing book had said Alpha Earth’s President Faison was a 63-year-old who had been an Army General and then spent just two years in the Senate before being elected President the prior November. He was a widower, father and grandfather, with a daughter who had followed his example of joining the military. Faison was a light skinned black man (what the Alphas called African American). He looked fit, with close cropped slightly graying hair. Faison’s opening statement expressed hope for complete openness across the timelines, and the sharing of technology to everyone’s mutual benefit. He hoped the Alphas could help bridge any differences between the timelines and expressed disappointment in the recent restrictions placed on the Alpha timeline reps by the Betas and Deltas. When Faison had finished speaking President Townsend wrote the word focused on her notepad.
President Townsend spoke next. She wondered to herself what the others thought of her as a divorced 62-year-old mother, grandmother (who hated being described as statuesque – she actually would have preferred the term Rubenesque), and career politician with a 35-year-old Congressman son, Peter Moy, who was happily married with three daughters. Townsend had seconded the call for openness, and reminded Faison and the others that she had only ordered the escorts and restrictions on other timeline representatives to comport with what the Beta reps were experiencing.
Edward P. Keller was in his second term as the United States President on Gamma Earth. Keller was only 51 years of age. The briefing book provided no personal information on President Keller, but in his statement, Keller spoke of how he wanted success in the talks for the sake of all the Earths, including his wife and children. Keller was a slightly overweight white man with a shock of salt and pepper hair. President Townsend realized he had just spoken in platitudes, and if asked to describe Keller in one word she would say vacuous.
United States President Margaret Redpath of Delta Earth was a 57-year-old mixed race woman also in her second term. The briefing book stated she was happily married to a hotel entrepreneur, and they had three adult children with seven grandchildren. Redpath said she too wanted openness and said it could start with the Alphas and the Gammas giving the same free rein to all representatives that the Betas and Deltas had originally allowed. She pointed out how the Deltas had shared their battery technology and didn’t want to speak in code – she very much wanted Delta access to the Alphas’ AI tech, the Betas’ fusion breakthrough, “and whatever the hell it is the Gammas are hiding.” Patricia Townsend took an immediate liking to her counterpart, who she would later describe as a dynamic woman. Townsend wrote a note to see if aides could set up a meeting with just the two women.
They were just about to get into the specifics of the summit when the president’s secretary announced that Vice Admiral Callahan had arrived. The president asked CIA Director Li to remain in the room but directed the others to take dinner and return in an hour. Admiral Callahan entered, and nodded to Director Li as the President motioned her to sit.
Callahan began – “Madame President, we had complete success. Using the summit signals to cover transport, we were able to insert two person teams into each of the other timelines, and they were successfully retrieved shortly before the technicians shut the signal down following your summit. Shall I begin my brief?”
The Goddard Research Center, Greenbelt Maryland - 1254 hours EST 21 March 2041 (Beta Earth)
Terry Washington leaned over and kissed his wife Adele goodbye, pulling a suitcase and garment bag off the backseat as he exited the car. If all went as planned, he would be back with his family in about a month. Special Agent Washington was beginning the most important assignment of his FBI career. Washington was going to visit Alpha Earth to gather intelligence. Most of the next month would be consumed by training, simulations, and learning the legend that, with the help of Bill Foster, they were developing for Washington to infiltrate Alpha Earth for three to five days. Not being able to say anything to Adele about his mission felt wrong, but at least telling her he had an assignment that required leaving town for a while wasn’t a lie. He had been able to give her a telephone number to call in case of emergency but emphasized that depending on when she called it might take days for him to answer.
Terry had volunteered to go to Alpha Earth just over one month prior, but his was not to be the first secret insertion. During the President’s February 27th video summit with the United States Presidents from the competing timelines, there had been clandestine transports of two person teams to each of the other three timelines. The summit itself had been used to facilitate these short-term insertions. Washington was picked for this longer one-man mission to Alpha Earth. He was now going over the summaries of what those teams brought back.
Since all four Presidents on the 27th were to be speaking from their own version of the White House it was decided that the window opened for communication could be used to mask the transport of the teams somewhere in the general area of Washington City (or in the case of Alpha Earth Washington, D.C.). The missions were necessarily short term as the communications window would be closed within an hour of the conclusion of the Presidential summit.
The first suggestion to send the teams to the Library of Congress was rejected due to the locale being too high profile. It was decided that since the Public Library at Takoma Park was opened on Beta Earth in 1911, the transport windows could be focused at that locale as it was deemed there was a good chance that it was a library on one or more of the other Earth’s as well. A library was thought to be the best location for quickly gathering the basic background material the Beta government sought.
From his prior briefing Washington knew that, whether traveling back in time or to another timeline, once a lock was established before anyone actually steps through a transport window the Project Infinity teams would actually look through the window to see what was on the other side. The pre-insertion window is extremely small, and all four timelines referred to it as a peephole at that point. The peephole can also be moved around up to about 80 meters from where it first appears. This allows for observations to make sure those being transported were not walking into something dangerous like a fire, but just as important for clandestine transports it assured there is no one on the other side who would note their arrival.
In the case of the summit transports Project Infinity hit three cherries on their slot machine. There was indeed a public library at each of Takoma Parks, and in each case the team was able to locate unobtrusive insertion points within a few minutes of establishing a window. Each of the teams were given ready access to the library computers and books. Since each timeline had different interfaces, software, and hardware for their electronic devices, the teams were equipped with adaptors. The adaptors had been developed to allow representatives of the various Earths access to each other’s systems during official exchanges. They also had identification documents that they hoped would work, but fortunately hadn’t had to show them.
In each case one member of the team was to act as a lookout while the other did research, but this soon proved to be an unnecessary precaution. Aside from asking whether they had library cards on Gamma Earth, no one was asked for any identification. In all cases the library staff were extremely helpful, with the librarian on Gamma Earth giving the team a temporary access code, with the only caveat being that they couldn’t take any books or media out of the building without a permanent card. Billie Huong on the Delta mission reported with a smile that her partner Ed Rodgers must have really looked nervous, because the librarian twice looked at his activity warning he “better not be accessing pornography.” Fortunately, the material they were downloading and hard reference material they were viewing applied only to post-1900 history and current affairs. Their mission in essence was to see whether the historical information given to the Betas from the other timelines was correct. Even though the other operatives weren’t aware of Bill Foster’s defection, their findings would be used to judge his reliability as well.
The Delta history matched up pretty well with what the Deltas had provided the other timelines. The Gamma team’s report filled in many of the gaps the Betas had in the Gamma history. One interesting point on the Gammas was that while they were extremely reluctant to open up to the Beta official reps, there appeared to be absolutely no censorship in what they allowed the public to know about their history, current affairs, and international relations. There were plans to train an operative to go to the Gamma Earth at some point after Terry’s mission.
The Alphas were a different story. The historical information they had provided was accurate up to the early 2010s. They had failed to mention three very contentious Presidential elections from 2016 to 2024 and two major pandemics that lasted from 2019 to 2021 and 2035 to 2037 respectively. The Alphas had previously mentioned conflicts from the 2020s through most of the 2030s, but it was obvious from the team’s reports that the conflicts were much more destructive than the Alphas had let on to the other timelines. All this seemed to confirm Dr. Foster’s debriefs. The junior member of the Alpha team was told he would not be traveling to another timeline again after he devoted a full page in his report to the fact that a television show called Star Trek that he had discovered decades after it had been canceled on Beta Earth in 1969 had spawned numerous spin-offs, films, books and computer games on Alpha Earth. All three teams were extracted without incident before the summit window had closed.
Terry was pleased when informed that he had been chosen for this mission but was a little surprised. He remarked to Vice Admiral Callahan that he was happy to have been chosen but had expected a CIA or DIA agent would have been picked. Washington was still happy to be going but felt some concern when Callahan informed him that he was picked at “your buddy Bill’s insistence, and since he is the primary source being used to create your legend, we complied.”
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