"All personnel stand ready. The portal will be opening in two minutes."
Geoffrey Orst's voice echoed throughout the empty halls of the Council's island base. Everyone that needed to hear the announcement was standing within fifteen feet. The rest were...
It wasn't healthy thinking about the rest.
Of the one hundred and seventy five men that the Council had assigned to this mission, only ten, including Orst, had survived. By the standards of any rational combat commander, a ninety percent attrition rate was a complete failure. By the standards of the Council, ninety percent was considered acceptable losses if it furthered their agenda.
"And just what did we accomplish here?" Orst said quietly as he made small adjustments to the time portal's controls.
"What was that Geoff?" asked Zandra from his right.
Orst took a deep breath. "Nothing, Doctor."
"Sounded like a deep personal realization to me. But, what do I know, I'm a Chronologist not a Psychiatrist." She flipped a sequence of switches and mumbled for a moment in Russian before turning away from her console and walking over to stand behind the former Council commander.
"You're alive, Geoff. Use that as a starting point. Whatever it is you did, is done. Everything that happened here had to happen..."
"It didn't," Orst protested.
"It did," Zandra said quietly. "And, no matter how much we might want to change that, it has to stay happened so that other things, more important things, happen." Zandra paused for a moment wondering how much she should say.
"On the day that this portal first opened into Astoria, a girl, about 17 years old, is just finishing her school day and is thinking of nothing more exciting than getting home and watching tv. As she steps onto the platform for the Yellow line, she hears the first screams of people dying and turns back to see Pantheon minions swarming out of a portal. She's overwhelmed with the desire to know what's happening, and why; but before she can run off of the platform, she's caught up in the rush of fleeing people, and she's taken to safety on Talos Island. Because of this, she decides to become a reporter.
Skip ahead to just about a year ago, relative time. The girl, a struggling reporter, finds herself at the center of a plot to overwrite reality. Through a combination of dumb luck and foolish courage, she's part of a group of heroes that thwart the plot and save the lives of hundreds of thousands.
Time Skip again to just a few months ago when that same girl, now a bit older and a bit more successful, but still obsessed with wanting to know what and why, finds herself sneaking into Galaxy City in the aftermath of an alien invasion, and starting a chain of events that results in an Atomic bomb exploding. Because she is there, the bomb explodes several miles offshore instead of in the heart of the City. Because she is there, a million people do not die needlessly.
Time Skip one more time to about five hours ago when that same girl, still obsessively curious and still stupidly lucky, is pulled through a rogue time portal and stumbles upon a joint Council/ Banished Pantheon operation which is sending undead soldiers to Astoria. Because she is there, the operation is stopped before more of the city can be overrun, and many more lives lost."
Zandra paused. He didn't need to know more. He was smart, he'd figure it out. She decided that a quick change of subject was in order.
"Shall we check up with our remote unit,?" she said brightly as she lifted her hand to her ear.
"Breaker, Breaker, this is the Timedoc to the Birdman. Come back, good buddy..."
Onboard the yacht, Ripple Effect, Etherfalcon simply stared at the radio. He couldn't think of a way to respond.
"Go ahead."
"We'll be ready to open the portal in about thirty seconds. Are the repeaters in place?"
"Powered up and on standby."
"Good. Remember, they're makeshift so the time wave is going to make those burn themselves out rather dramatically during the transit. Try to keep everyone away from them. If everything goes as planned you should end up exactly when you left."
"And you?" asked Madam Masada, as she leaned closer to the speaker.
"I've got my own way home, thank you very much. Once you're gone I'll send Orst and his boys through to a good landing place where they can stay out of trouble.And then I'll make this portal eat itself and the island."
"How?" asked Etherfalcon.
Zandra laughed. She'd have been surprised if he hadn't asked.
"It's a well known fact in the time travel community that if you put ranch dressing on top of a time portal then switch it on..."
Masada laughed. "David, you don't need to know."
"There's nothing I don't need to know," Etherfalcon said, smiling. "Professor, it's been good working with you. I'll look forward to our next meeting."
Zandra turned her head and watched the numbers count down. At zero she pressed two buttons and sent a wave of time energy arcing across the island. In the shielded control room the wave went unnoticed but outside, reality wavered.
On board the Ripple Effect, ten impromptu time circuits flashed to life. Their simple programming bent the time energy and arced it around themselves repeatedly until a hole between now and then opened. The transition was far more gentle than the last time the yacht passed through time and the boat and it's crew settled back into the same warm Caribbean waters it left.
As the time energy subsided, the circuits' final programming activated and, in a show of pre-planned fireworks, each one of them destroyed themselves to keep the secret of time travel safe for at least a little while longer.
Back in the past, Five Hundred years previously, Professor Zandra Alexander-Reyalde reset the switches on a time portal in the middle of a Council base, surrounded by an island that wasn't supposed to be there. Standing next to her was Geoffrey Orst, a man who had no idea what was going to become of him.
Zandra believed she could do something about that.
"You know, Geoff, you seem to be looking for work."
"I guess I am."
Zandra smiled a cheshire grin. "Go get your people settled then come on back and talk to me. I think I know people who might be willing to hire a guy looking for a second chance."
******
"Kenna!" Shouted Etherfalcon. "Has anyone seen Kenna?"
end Company Business.
