Time Camp

Episode 1: Family Time

By John Huegel

BOOK ONE: BUSINESS TRIP

Chapter 1: Chopping Wood

It was cold and gray outside, and a steady wind was blowing from the West. Andy Watson was not in a good mood, and he let it show. He and his dad Tom were outside chopping wood while his twin sister and Mom were inside, playing video games, texting and staying WARM! All he wanted was to go inside and relax.

“Dad, do we have to do this?” Andy moaned, as he carried a bundle of kindling over to the porch. He knew the answer but had to let it out.

“Well, you were the one who wanted a roaring fire every night,” replied Tom. “You gotta chop it son, or it won’t burn right.”

“Well, Brad has a gas fireplace in their house, and so does Zack. Why do we have to burn wood?” whined Andy, as he slogged across the snow-covered back yard.

“Because we have a real fireplace that burns real wood. This is how it was done for all of history. Isn’t that exciting, to think that what we are doing has been done for thousands, maybe millions of years?” responded his dad, as he grunted with an armload of split wood.

Andy replied, “Yeah, real exciting. My feet are freezing and my nose is running. How much longer?”

“Just another few minutes. Come on, help me split some kindling so we have some good thin wood for starting.”

Andy sighed and picked up the old family hatchet. It had been in the family for several generations, and had chopped many seasons’ kindling wood. Both he and his dad were pretty good at shaving kindling off of split logs.

As Andy and his father worked, he wondered about how many logs had been split over the ages. His dad’s comment about history got him thinking about how many dads and sons had labored in the snow to provide wood, not just for a toasty living room, but to heat houses and cook food. It seemed so old-fashioned, but it gave him a place in history. At 12 years of age, Andy was already starting to think at times like an adult, and at others like a kid. Blonde and strong, he had not yet reached his full height, but he was growing quickly.

“CRAP!” bellowed Tom, as he jumped up and grabbed his left hand.

“What happened?” cried Andy. He could see a few spatters of red on the white snow. He didn’t like where this was going.

“My mind wandered and I let the hatchet skip off the stick. I cut my hand”, replied Tom.

“Is it bad?”asked Andy as he came around to see his dad’s hand.

“Not worthy of stitches. A couple of butterflies and I’ll be good as new”, replied Tom as he headed for the back door.

Andy called out, “I’ll finish here and be in as soon as I fill the box, dad. You get mom to patch you up,” but Tom was already inside the back porch before he was finished talking. The adrenalin rush from his dad’s accident had him warm and moving quickly. In just a few minutes, he was done and heading indoors. Darkness soon came, and a light midwinter snowfall began to swirl under the outdoor lights.

Chapter 2: A quiet dinner

Jenna Watson helped clean up her dad’s cut left hand and put a clean bandage on it. Shortly afterward, her twin brother Andy came in, and they talked about the accident and school stuff and some of her friends, whom Andy had started paying some attention to lately.

Jenna was blonde like her brother, and was a slender, quiet girl. Active in cheerleading, she was starting to make new friends at her school. She liked helping around the house, and was starting to become more interested in art, especially drawing and fashion.

The house was quiet tonight, as the twins’ older sister Laura was away, staying at a friend’s house. That suited Jenna just fine. She loved her sister dearly, but being two years younger kept her in Laura’s shadow. Sometimes, she just enjoyed the quiet time.

Over a dinner of pizza and salad, Jenna, Andy, Tom and his wife Liz chatted about many things: Andy’s basketball, Jenna’s cheerleading, their schoolwork, and the parents’ upcoming business trip.

This would be Liz and Tom’s first trip together in many years. They were both psychologists, though they worked for different agencies. This year, the national convention for psychologists was being held in Buffalo, New York, just a short drive from their home in Erie, Pennsylvania. Given that they were traveling together, they were able to get the approval from both companies to allow them to go to the convention and share expenses. After finalizing the details and re-arranging schedules, they were ready for a bit of a break…just the two of them for a whole week!

The kids were not very happy to see their parents leave. The kids’ Grandma Jean was coming into town to stay with them. She would stay quite busy with the kids as each of them had a full agenda of after school sports and club activities, and she would need to pick them up and drive them around. Since Tom and Liz would be gone for nearly a week, it was important to plan every hour of every day to keep the kids on schedule.

As the evening drew to an end, Andy played his video games, Jenna texted and messaged online, and Tom and Liz relaxed with the dogs and finished their last minute packing.

Chapter 3: Missing Mom and Dad

Sunday’s weather dawned no better than the previous evening. A continuing gray, dull, cold and snowy day awaited them as Laura arrived home from her sleepover, followed shortly by Grandma Jean. Laura was tall, slender and strong, and very determined to succeed at anything she tried to do. Her long brown hair and green eyes set her apart from her fair-haired younger brother and sister.

Tom and his wife loaded the car, gave final instructions to the kids and Tom’s mother, and shuffled off to Buffalo.

As they drove, they chatted about the seminar schedule and the list of activities planned for the convention. Time passed quickly for them, and soon they were in Buffalo. They found the hotel and convention center, and parked and registered at the hotel. Once they found their room and unloaded their luggage, they went back down to the lobby and over to the convention hall, where a welcome reception was just getting started.

Back in Erie, the week went by slowly for the Watson kids. Andy had basketball practice and lots of homework, and Jenna had cheerleading and even more homework. Laura was equally busy, and all three kids missed their parents terribly. Grandma Jean was nice to have around, but the family was very close and they didn’t feel right when Tom and Liz were not around. Plus, Grandma Jean got tired a lot, and didn’t give the kids the kind of attention that they received from Mom and Dad.

On Thursday night at around ten PM, Jenna jumped out of bed and ran to Grandma Jean who was still up watching television.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” asked Grandma Jean.

“I had this feeling that Mom and Dad are gone. But then it just went away!” sobbed Jenna. She was clearly upset.

“I think you just miss your parents a lot, Jenna.” replied Jean. “You’ll see them tomorrow, I’m sure of it.”

“I hope so. It was like… like they disappeared!” Jenna said.

“Well, it was just a bad dream, honey. Why don’t you have a glass of water and try to get some sleep.”

“OK, I guess it was kind of silly”, replied Jenna as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. But she still had a strange feeling about what she had just experienced, and it took her many minutes to relax and fall back to sleep.

Chapter 4: Home Again!

By Friday evening, the kids were very excited with the impending return of their parents. When their minivan rolled up, the kids and dogs ran to the car to meet them.

As Tom and Liz burst from the car, the kids ran up and made a big group hug around them. Liz was smiling and crying, and Tom was a little teary-eyed as well. The dogs were yapping and Grandma Jean was watching from the porch, with a smile.

Andy noticed his mom’s tears and joked, “Mom, you must really love us to be so worked up!”

Liz commented, “Well kids, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you!” She exchanged a glance to Tom, who returned the eye contact with a knowing grin.

Laura piped in, “What do you mean? It’s been only five days!”

Tom quickly interjected, “Well, it just seemed like it was a lot longer than that, I suppose.”

They decided to go out to get chicken wings for dinner. Grandma Jean yawned, and mentioned that she had to get back to her cats, after which she packed herself back into her car to go home. After a quick thank you, goodbye and hugs all around, Grandma Jean drove off and the Watsons headed out for dinner.

Chapter 5: Things Noticed

Over dinner, the Watsons caught up with everyone’s activities. Andy, being the most vocal of the twins, jumped into the conversation first. He proudly announced his recent grades and his basketball game on Wednesday, where he scored 8 points. Jenna quietly described her new stunts in cheerleading and some interesting activities in her student council. Laura kept the chatter going, talking about her Model U.N. meeting, her volleyball practice and the game she played on Thursday. They pestered their parents for details on their trip, and tried to understand the meaning of the seminars and workshops that they attended. They brightened to the discussion of the food, parties and the convention floor, where all of the many vendors showed off new products and services.

Laura mentioned one comment that changed the mood of the dinner. “You know the collage I’m doing on world history? I chose the Fall of the Berlin Wall and was working on it this week. The strangest thing happened, though. I downloaded some pictures of the wall being torn down, and I’d swear there was a person in one of the pictures who looked just like you, Mom!”

“That’s ridiculous!” snapped Liz. Everyone just stared at her. She said “I’m sorry Laura. I didn’t mean to shout at you. It’s just that it would be impossible for me to have been there. That was what, 20 years ago? We were in college then, and would have been in our twenties.”

“It was November 9, 1989. I remember the date, because it’s the same date as Ashlyn’s birthday,” replied Laura, somewhat defensively.

“Ahh, November 9th, 1989. We weren’t even married then.” replied Laura’s father, trying to smooth over the incident.

“Well, it looked exactly like you, Mom,” replied Laura.

“I’d like to see it when we get home,” commented Liz.

“Yeah, sure,” replied Laura. But her expression showed that she was hurt and confused by her mother’s outburst.

Andy, sensing some stress, said, “Hey Dad, how’s that axe-wound doing?”, and he lifted his dad’s hand. His mouth fell open as he looked at his father’s hand. There was no scar! “What – what happened to your scar?” asked Andy.

“I must be a quick healer,” muttered Tom as he pulled his hand back and glanced at his wife. “Is everyone done? We should get the check and head home before it gets too late.”

The kids exchanged a puzzled look. Sensing dinner conversation was over, they put on their coats and headed for the van.

Chapter 6: A Strange Discussion

Back home, the kids met in Jenna’s room, the neatest of the three kids.

“Something really weird is going on with Mom and Dad,” said Laura. “They were really jumpy at dinner.”

“Yeah,” said Andy. “I have no way to explain how Dad healed up so fast. Jenna, you saw his cut. It was massive!”

Jenna replied, “I know. I didn’t tell you two but I had a really funny feeling Thursday night. I think something strange happened to them, and they are keeping it from us.”

“What do you think it might be? Did they get in some kind of trouble in Buffalo?” asked Laura.

“I don’t know, but it’s not fair for them to treat us like this. We’re a family!” stated Andy.

“Well, let’s see if things change tomorrow. They did just get home, after all,” Laura said. “Let’s give them a day, and if they don’t pull out of it, I say we call a Family Meeting, like they used to do to us.”

“That sounds fair,” said Jenna, and the other two went to their own rooms.

Downstairs, Tom and Liz were unpacking and putting away their suitcases.

“Liz, I feel really weird about this”.

“Me too, honey. It’s like we’re holding out on them.”

“We were gone so long. Two months is too long to be away from the kids,” replied Tom.

Liz replied, “They are too smart. How could we ever explain the scar to Andy? And the picture! What are the odds that Laura would pick this one week to look back at that one event? “

“Well, Lana told us it would be hard, and we’d have to make one decision for all of us.”

“We have all of the time we need, she assured us of that,” said Liz. “But I don’t think we should take a lot of time to decide. The kids know something is up, and I don’t like how I react when we have to cover something up. I say we get this out in the open. We’ll just have to trust the kids to deal with this in confidence.”

“I agree completely. Sunday morning, we have a family meeting”, replied Tom, as they got ready for bed.

Chapter 7: Family Meeting

Saturday was busy as usual, with shopping, the kids at sports and lots of running around. Liz and Tom were a bit reserved and nervous about their upcoming meeting. They told the kids not to make plans for Sunday as they had a special activity planned. There was a bit of grumbling, but no outright fireworks. In fact, the kids were relieved that they would have a chance to talk to their parents about the strange things going on.

Sunday morning, after everyone was up, they cooked a big breakfast and everyone ate their fill. As they were cleaning up, Laura asked the question. “So what’s the big deal? What can be so important that we have a family meeting?”

Their mom answered, “It’s going to take a while, and we need your complete attention, so phones off and get comfortable.”

So everyone took a cozy seat in the living room and Tom and Liz sat down with fresh coffee. “We need to ask one thing before we start. You must never discuss this with anyone outside of this house, unless we tell you that the person is OK to talk to about this,” started Tom.

Andy was first to chime in. “We kind of figured out something was up, but you’re kind of freaking us out with this cloak and dagger stuff, Dad.”

“Yeah,” replied Jenna, “Did you guys get in some kind of trouble in Buffalo?”

“Well, after we’re done, you’ll know why we’re having this meeting,” replied Tom, a bit annoyed.

After a few awkward glances around the room, Liz began, “This is going to sound totally strange, but please keep an open mind and let us finish before you interrupt us”.

“You see, you might think we were gone five days last week. But we were really gone about two months.”

“What?” hollered Laura. “That’s not possible!” The twins just looked at each other with strange faces.

Dad replied, “We’re going to tell you the whole story from our perspective.”

Chapter 8: The Story

Tom explained.

“We got to the convention hall Sunday night. There were a bunch of people there at the cocktail party we told you about. One lady was a bit of a strange bird, but she introduced herself to us as Lana and started talking to us like she knew us. I thought I had seen her in Erie a while ago, but she brushed off the question when I asked her.

During the whole week, we’d run into her at least once a day or more, and she’d manage to catch us at meals, and ask lots of questions about us, about our whole family. We asked her where she was from, but we didn’t get anything more than that she was from Canada. I guess that kind of explained her accent, or so we thought. We also noticed some strange tattoos on her wrists and around her ears, but we didn’t want to embarrass her by bringing it up.

It wasn’t until Thursday that things got strange. She asked us to join her for lunch. During the meal, she asked us if we were interested in some really experimental, confidential research. We were curious, and she invited us to join her at a research facility in downtown Buffalo that night. We were a bit nervous about it, but we decided to go with her.

We met her outside the convention center. She had a car with a driver, which impressed us. We climbed into the limo and he drove us all off downtown and then north near Niagara Falls. Now we’re pretty familiar with Buffalo, but he took us to some warehouse area over near Tonawanda on a side street we’d never seen. The warehouse was medium sized, and looked pretty much like all of the others nearby: single story, a few windows, some truck bays and a front office with the light still on.

Once we arrived, Lana led through the office us to a conference room behind the warehouse. There were three other people waiting there – one woman with short, dark hair, and two men. One of the men was older, and had no hair at all, and the other man had long blonde hair and looked to be in his thirties. They all had the same kind of tattoos on their faces, neck and arms as Lana, which was kind of strange, and they were wearing clothing that didn’t really fit with a warehouse facility – kind of shimmery suits.

Lana looked at the three others and they didn’t say a word. After a couple of moments, they nodded at each other and Lana turned to us.

“They approve of you. We need your complete promise of confidentiality and permission to memory wipe you if you refuse,” Lana told us.

We were scared at this point. We looked at each other and got up to leave.

“…Please,” said the older man. “You are very important to us. To all of humanity. Please listen to us before your leave.”

We were very uncomfortable and confused, but we sat back down. Lana began to explain:

“We are not exactly who we have led you to believe. We belong to an exclusive research group that observes historical events and records them for future people to preserve.”

“In order for us to tell you more, we need your promise of confidentiality. We will not harm you, we promise. But if you refuse, we will need to remove the memory of this discussion. It will not hurt you.”

I’ll be honest, we were scared, to death, but we were also quite curious at this point, so we agreed to continue.

We asked them to level with us about their outfits and their tattoos – to come clean.

Lana replied, “We’re not from around here. To be honest, we don’t belong here. This may sound unbelievable to you, but we’re from a time about 100 years into your future. We don’t adapt well to your time, and we are not completely comfortable in your clothing.”

We didn’t believe them. We were really shaken by that comment. It could have been a joke, or some kind of test.

The talking man replied, “You notice our markings. Everyone in our time has them. It allows us to communicate with each other and the communal intellect.”

Tom said, “Prove it.”

Lana said, “Write a number on that tablet. Hand it to one of us.”

So I did. I made up a combination of our street address, social security numbers, birth dates and shoe sizes. It was about 25 digits long. I handed it to the quiet lady. Immediately, the other three in unison recited the numbers. Then Lana added, “You are not very creative. House address, personal identification, we get. What are the last two digits?”

As amazed as I was, I answered them, “Shoe size.” They raised their eyes in amusement.

I said, “OK, so perhaps we believe you. That was at least an impressive trick. If you are here from the future, how did you get here, why are you here, and what do you need us for?”

Lana replied, “In about 100 years, humans will undergo a fundamental change. These markings indicate that we have been joined, minds tied together and merged to the communal intellect. We can’t survive without that tie, without serious mental distress. Plus, we have observed that we are somewhat easily detected by people in the past, from our markings and behaviors.”

I told them, “You are right, you stuck out like a sore thumb.” The four observers cocked their eyes in puzzlement for moment, and then a look of recognition crossed their faces, as they processed the metaphor. “So you are telling me you can travel into the past, but you can’t do it well because you’ll be discovered?”

“Precisely,” said Lana. “We are limited to future travel because we can’t blend into the past. There are others more advanced than us from many eras in the future. They are the people who created spatiotemporal travel, and the Guild which oversees travel and research throughout time.”

“Because you have not yet been tied to the communal intellect, people of your time can most easily travel to your past without distress, and without being easily detected. Therefore, we are recruiting you to be potential travelers and observers to the past.”

We asked them, “What do you need to know about the past for? Aren’t history books and videos enough?”

They collectively smiled in response. Lana replied, “People in our era, and especially in later eras, can experience events directly as they happened, provided there are human observers there, properly equipped with observing devices. This is the predominant way that events are observed and recorded in the future. Plus, we need to have baseline recordings recorded for temporal enforcement.”

“Enforcement? Like the police?” Liz asked.

“Kind of like that. The problem with temporal travel is that sometimes people do the wrong thing in the wrong time, and the timeline can be shifted.”

“So you want to make us into time cops?” I asked them.

“Oh no. You will become observers. In the Guild, there are observers, auditors and agents. We want to you become observers and go back in time to witness and record the truth. The auditors will monitor the timeline from a safe placetime, and the agents will step in when needed to keep the timeline accurate,” replied Lana.

“So we’ll carry cameras and stuff? Into the past? Isn’t that kind of dangerous?” asked Tom.

“It will be much simpler than that. You’ll be outfitted with biological enhancements that will allow you to record your experiences in full fidelity for us to retrieve later,” replied the talking man.

Liz commented, “We are NOT going to have things stuck into our bodies! That’s crazy!”

Lana jumped in, “You will not need them at first, and if you accept, you will be in full control of them. They will not affect you the way they affect us, since you grew up without them. Please believe us when we say that you will not have any discomfort from them.”

“Won’t we look and act like you?” asked Liz.

Lana answered, “No, the temporal observer enhancements are different. They are specifically designed for people from your Era. They are organic, and allow you some limited communication with others, and control of your sensation recording. They are only active when you are on a mission, and turned off when you are back in your own timeline. But you still remain individuals, and can act independently.”

Tom said, “Umm….can we try this on before we would submit to, to enhancements?”

“Certainly. That is precisely the idea that we have in mind for you. A short trip to the past with a trained observer so that you can gain our trust and understand how we work.”

Liz asked, “How long will this take? We have to get back to Erie tomorrow or we’ll be missed.”

The four strangers all smiled. The older man said, “You may take as much time as you need. You will be returned to this time once you are through, and you will be able to return to your family on schedule.”

We were clearly confused, but we were catching on. “How will that work?” we asked.

Lana replied, “Once we go through that door, we’ll pass into the InterTime Zone. We can spend as much time there as we need. We’ll note when you need to come back, and will return you to then when your introduction is complete.”

Tom looked at Liz, and she shrugged and smiled. Tom said, “This is really strange. Very strange. But given the evidence, we have to believe some part of your story. It’s crazy, but I think we’re willing to give it a try.”

So, we got up with them and went through the door.

Back in the Watson’s living room, the kids were visibly uncomfortable. Jenna jumped up and said, “I KNEW something happened Thursday night. I even told Grandma Jean about it. I had a strong feeling that you both disappeared. That must have been when you walked through the door!”

Liz and Tom looked at each other. Liz replied, “Jade told us that you had a very strange sense about Time, that only one in ten million people can even sense time shifts. I think that’s one of the reasons that Lana approached us.” Andy and Laura just stared at Jenna and her parents.

Andy said, “You mean Jenna has some super ability to detect time changes?”

“Apparently,” said their mother. “Are you ready for the rest of the story?” They all nodded, and she continued.

Chapter 9: Intertime Zone

Liz continued the description of their adventure.

“As we passed through the door, we had a strange tingling feeling, but it faded once we went through the doorway into what looked like an elevator. We all waited in the elevator until an indicator blinked blue, and the opposite door opened into a room. The room was huge, impossibly huge given the size of the building we had entered. The ceiling was hundreds of feet tall, and there were halls and rooms off to all sides of the hall. But there was almost no one in the big hall. Your Dad and I just stood and stared.

“What is this place?” I asked Lana.

“It’s a temporally isolated and protected facility that we use as a home base for recruiting.”

The other three strangers followed us in and left down a nearby corridor. Lana led us down one of the many halls to a room. In it was a tall blonde man who stood when we entered. He had a crew cut and was dressed about like us. He introduced himself as Brad.”

“Welcome to the InterTime Zone, Liz and Tom,” said Brad, extending his hand. We were shocked that he knew us. He filled us in. “We have been scouting you for some time. Lana and the other three Era 50 citizens just embarked a minute ago to pick you up. I’m glad she succeeded, though I didn’t doubt it for a second. The Timeline rarely lies, you know.”

We didn’t know how to respond. We asked him how he knew us. “We’re pretty new to this timeline, and are trying to establish a corps of observers. Singles are fine, but couples and especially families are excellent for historical event observations.”

“What do you mean by families? I don’t want to wrap my kids up in some time travel mess!” cried Liz, obviously upset at the comment. Brad looked at Lana. “You didn’t talk to them about family trips?”

Lana looked frazzled. “Not yet. Let’s get them through Observation and Prime Mission and see what they think,” she replied.

Brad took over. “OK. No talk of families yet. Let’s talk about an Observation mission. That’s the first step with new recruits. You’ll be going with an escort, me, and you won’t have any enhancements. So you’ll have to stay right with me so nothing happens. We’ve also chosen an event that took place during your recent lifetime, so we’ll have to be extremely careful about interactions.”

Tom interjected, “Hold on. This is going a little too fast. An hour ago we were riding in a limo in Buffalo and now we’re in some kind of limbo-land and you’re already talking about sending us on a time mission?”

Brad took a deep breath and said, “OK, so we’re going a bit fast for you. I apologize. How about you catch a good night’s sleep and we start first thing in the morning?”

Liz said, “That would be good. We’re honestly trying to keep up with you, but you must admit that this is a little strange.”

Brad concurred, “You’re right. I was recruited two years ago and it took me a couple of days to soak it up. But I’m from a couple decades before you, so you may pick up a bit faster.”

“Wait,” said Tom. “You are from where, I mean when?”

Brad replied, “I was born in 1954 in Cincinnati and recruited in 1985, back when the personal computer was just an idea.”

Liz asked, “And you’re allowed to travel into the future? Well, past 1985?”

“Yes, as a recruiter and liaison to Era 50, I’m Level 4 certified, meaning I can freely travel anywhere in or before my era as long as I file a flight plan.”

“Flight plan, you mean you fly and travel in time?” asked Tom.

Brad laughed. “No, that’s just what we call it in our era. The people from Era 50 are really hard to communicate with, so we use our own lingo in Era 47.”

Tom moaned, “Era 47? Era 50? This is really confusing!”

Brad said, “Just go to sleep. I’ll catch you up later.”

Back in the living room, the kids were glued to the couch. They didn’t move, they didn’t ask questions. They looked at their parents with pleading eyes. Tom asked, “Ready for more?” They nodded emphatically.

Chapter 10: A good night’s sleep

Lana stood to escort them to their sleeping quarters. On the way there, they asked Lana, “So you are an Era 50 person?”

Lana replied, “Yes, I was born in 2110 and recruited in 2133.”

Liz asked, “Forgive the intrusion, but if you are bonded to the communal intellect and each other in your time, then how come you can operate so well with people from our era?”

“It’s kind of complicated, but some of the commune can be fed to me here, through a kind of bridge. It lets me work here, without suffering from withdrawal from my people. But I do have to return soon.”

They followed, amazed at Lana’s explanation, but quickly catching on that things happened faster and differently in the InterTime Zone.

Soon they were introduced to a lovely suite whose only marking on the door was “Era 47 Liz and Tom Watson”. Lana said, “Please be comfortable and rest. Once you are ready, you may leave your suite and Brad will take over your orientation.”

“Will we see you again, Lana?”, asked Liz.

“Perhaps. I mostly recruit new observers and occasionally agents, but we may cross paths again.”

“Well thank you for your help. We believe you now, and we’re sorry for acting so strange back in the office,” said Tom.

“No problem at all. Given the circumstances, you reacted very well. You are both intelligent, observant and self-confident. They are the talents of good observers, and your reactions told us that you would work well in strange circumstances. I wish you the best of luck in your orientation and I sincerely hope that you choose to join us in our mission. It is very important to humanity.”

“We are humbled with your compliments. Goodbye, Lana.”

“Oh, one more item. If you choose to include your family, which we sincerely hope you consider, the way in which you introduce it will affect your kids’ reactions. Laura in particular will be skeptical, but they can all be won over if you are honest and you tell the truth.”

“I guess you know more about us than we thought, but we trust your advice. Thanks!”, said Liz. Lana turned and walked off, and the Watson parents entered their InterTime hotel room.

The suite was clean, well furnished, and decorated in a clean, white décor. The closets had had robes to fit the two weary travelers, and a bin marked “to launder”. They got the idea, and changed into the robes and put their clothes in the bin and closed it. It beeped and seconds later, their clothes emerged clean and folded. It was clear that in this place, you didn’t have to wait for anything.

They discovered the same applied to room service. A simple card with a pencil was used to indicate their selections, and seconds after they put it in the slot, the doorbell rang and an attendant with a cart delivered their dinner to a table, piping hot and delicious.

After the meal and a shower, they talked over the day’s strange events and eventually fell into a deep sleep.

Many hours later, they awoke to gentle lighting. They repeated the room service trick and enjoyed a great breakfast. Upon exiting the suite, they were met outside by Brad, in the same clothes as the day before.

Chapter 11: The Inauguration

“Why didn’t you change?” asked Tom. Brad chuckled, “It’s only been 5 minutes for me. I sent your suite back far enough into yesterday that you’d come out right now.”

“This will take some getting used to,” joked Tom. He and Liz were both in much better spirits, and considerably more relaxed than the evening before. “So where, I mean when are we going on this Observational trip with you?”

Brad said, “Actually, both where and when. We will be attending Barack Obama’s inauguration speech on January 20, 2009. It’s enough to prove to you that we can travel in time, but not so far that you’ll have temporal shock.”

“What the heck is temporal shock?” asked Tom.

“Well, it’s like jet lag or cultural shock if you travel to a foreign country, but it’s a lot worse. It’s dangerous because it makes you tired and sloppy, and more likely to be discovered as a non-native. And if you get caught out of time, especially by the authorities, it can make it very difficult for everyone involved,” Brad said.

“OK, we put our life your hands. How do you know we weren’t there already? I voted Democrat you know”, asked Liz, with a grin.

Brad chuckled, “We checked you out pretty thoroughly. We sent back a few field agents to follow you over the week before and during the inauguration. You were in Erie, Corry and Niagara Falls, but nowhere near DC. The question we have for you is, were any of your friends in DC that week? It would be a bit strange if you were to run into them.”

Liz replied, “We didn’t hear from anyone who was there, but what if they were?”

Brad said, “We’ll try to lie low. And we’ll try hard to blend into the huge crowd that was on the mall that day. And speaking of blending in - Liz, your blouse is too new. We’ll have to change it out – that pattern won’t be released until fall 2010. Tom, you’re fine.”

Tom was a bit ruffled. “You mean my clothes are too old? I guess I’m behind the times! Well, at least we’ll get to hear the President’s first attempt at the Oath of Office. As I recall, he and the justice messed it up during the official ceremony.”

Brad cautioned, “Yes, this is very important. You know that something will be out of the ordinary at this event. You must not mention it in public, though. It may set into action a course of events that could be bad for lots of people, including us!”

“Duly noted. We’ll keep our mouths shut!” quipped Liz.

Brad took them to Wardrobe and they changed into clothing appropriate for the season and era, just for good measure.

Once they finished their preparations, Brad led them to the huge room that they came into the night before. Though mostly empty, there were a few people at desks near the center. Brad approached one of them, an operator. He told her, “Brandy, three for January 20, 2010, Washington DC TimeStation 4.” She tapped out a bit and repeated back the coordinates. “Booth 7. Return to now +1?”

“Roger, now +1, booth 7. Good day,” replied Brad, and led Liz and Tom off down the hall.

Booth 7 was lit in blue, and had the date and their names indicated on the front. Brad walked up and the doors opened. “How does the booth know it’s us?” asked Liz.

“My enhancements tell it who I am. It verified the flight plan as well. You two can’t travel without an escort until you’ve taken the enhancements.”

The doors whisked open and they entered. The booth was the size of a large elevator, nearly identical to the booth that brought them in from Tonawanda. After the doors closed, there was a brief delay and the far door opened into a brightly lit office.

Brad had a brief conversation with a man at a desk in the office. Opening an office door, they emerged into an outer office, which opened onto a side street in Georgetown. Across they alley, they saw a sign for ‘Blues Alley’. Shortly, a cab rolled up and drove them about three miles, taking them as close to the Capitol building as possible. The three travelers walked the rest of the way in, staying close to each other among the immense crowds.

The inauguration events unfolded as they had been recorded – the USMC band played, the San Francisco boys’ and girls’ choirs sang, the introductions and invocations and other celebratory events took place for America’s first African American president, and he took the somewhat fumbled oath, which he retook correctly a day later.

Brad, Tom and Liz blended into the crowd but stayed together and out of the reach of media cameras. Liz took Tom’s hand and gripped it tight during Elizabeth Alexander’s recitation of the poem “Praise Song for the Day”, and all stood proudly for the Navy Chanters’ rendition of the national anthem. Tears streamed down Tom and Liz’ faces as the anthem completed, and Brad watched them with a gentle smile.

After the ceremony, they slowly but quietly returned to the Georgetown office. As they walked, Tom asked quietly, “So would we mess up the timeline if we stopped and had lunch somewhere?”

Brad replied, “Not usually. Of course if it’s a place that gets some attention with a notable or historic event, you may step into a dangerous Placetime, which could disrupt the timeline. But with enhancements, you’ll know that before you get into danger.”

To prove that there was no real risk, Brad did take them to a café on a side street, and they had a nice lunch before they completed their return to the TimeStation. Brad paid with cash, and they set out walking once again.

As they approached the Georgetown office, they greeted the staff who set the door for return. Once they were through the lock, they returned to the InterTime Zone exactly a minute after they left.

“It’s so immediate. I can’t get used to traveling to a different place and time in the blink of an eye!” said Liz.

Brad replied, “It is amazing. No one from our time exactly understands all of the principles involved. Let’s go talk about the whole experience, OK?”

Tom and Liz nodded, and they went to Brad’s office to debrief.

“So, how was it?” he asked, as they sat down in comfortable overstuffed chairs.

Liz commented, “Not bad. I knew I was out of place in the mall, but I was conscious of needing to be inconspicuous. I guess since it was so recent, I didn’t feel too strange.”

“Tom, how about you?” asked Brad.

“It was good. I’m still getting used to the whole time travel thing, but I really got into the experience. I was suprisingly moved by the whole inauguration ceremony.”

“I noticed that about both of you, and that’s a good attribute. Observers are prized for their emotional responses to historical events. It really enhances the sensory experience.”

“Just who are these people in the future that made the Guild? Have you ever met them?” asked Liz.

Brad shook his head. “There’s a huge separation between us and Era 50, the tattooed ones. Beyond them, the gaps get bigger and bigger as humanity evolves and diverges. They are still human, still us, but communication is very difficult. To help with communication, there are actually translators at both sides of each of the Era boundaries, people who specialize in translating from one Era to another. I’m afraid it would be about as easy for us to communicate with Era 60 people as it would be for us to talk to whales.”

“Whoah. That’s pretty strange. When will someone explain these Eras to us?” asked Tom.

Brad replied, “Soon. It’s part of Time Camp training, and that’s your next decision. “

“Explain Time Camp for us,” asked Tom.

“Well,” said Brad, “It’s an orientation program where you learn how to be observers on your own. You’ll need to be taught some things, and you’ll receive your enhancements. These will prepare you to travel and operate as observers in time.”

“We’re still a bit freaked out by the whole enhancement thing, but it feels like you guys know what you are doing,” said Liz.

“I do, we all do, and we have been recruiting in various eras for many thousands of years. We’ll take good care of you!”

“Thanks, we appreciate that,” said Tom, yawning. “Can we get some shuteye? I’m bushed!”

“I hear ya. Let’s pick this up tomorrow. And I’m even going to sleep this time!” said Brad.

They all smiled, and the Watsons headed off to their suite for a good meal and some rest.

Chapter 12: Commitment

They slept well and in the morning after a magically fast breakfast delivery, were met by Brad, wearing a fresh outfit. He also had a young lady with him.

“Tom, Liz, meet Kara. If you sign up for Prime Mission, she’ll take you through Time Camp and get you ready. Let’s go to my office,” said Brad.

Off they went to Brad’s office. He took orders for coffee and seconds later, an orderly arrived with excellent drinks for everyone. As they sat drinking coffee, Kara introduced herself.

“I’m from California, born 2010, and recruited 2030. I’m single, and loving the temporal life. So are you ready to jump in the pool?” asked Kara.

“What’s involved? We went on our Observation Mission and I guess the next step is Prime Mission?” asked Liz.

“Well, the next step is Time Camp training. It gets you ready for your Prime Mission. But this is kind of the ‘point of no return’. You are either in or out at this point. Are you ready to commit?” asked Kara.

Tom and Liz exchanged glances. They had talked it over extensively in their suite. They were very much excited by the promise of adventure, and were ready to go. “Yes!” they both said. “But we miss the kids terribly. We would like to get back as soon as possible.”

“Great!” exclaimed Kara. “I assure you that the training will proceed quickly and you’ll be back to your family right on schedule.”

Brad gleamed, and congratulated them. “I’ll see you after training. Good Luck!” he said. Kara led Tom and Liz out of the office and down the hall.

Kara took them to the operations center. “Melissa, please set us up for Time Camp, Era 47 registration.”

“Era 47 registration. Booth 12. Return in +1?”, asked Melissa.

“Booth 12, return +1, have a Good Day”, said Kara and led the couple off to booth 12.

Back in the living room, the family took a collective breath.

“Holy crap,” said Laura. “This is getting deep. You’re telling us you stayed in some hotel in the middle of time, went back to Barack’s inauguration, and are now headed off to some camp?”

“You bet, kiddo. It gets better. You ready?” said Tom.

Andy piped in. “Let’s take a potty break. This sounds like it could take a while.”

“Granted. Let’s meet back here in 10 minutes. We’ll make some sandwiches and get ready for round 2,” said their mother.

In a short while, in which no one said a word, they were all back on the couch with sodas and sandwiches, ready for the next part of the story.

Chapter 13: Time Camp

Upon entering booth 12, the trio was zoomed off to a new destination. When the gateway opened, the room was huge and filled with a brilliant light streaming in from a huge clear domed ceiling, which was at least a 200 feet tall and nearly a quarter mile across. There were hundreds of people milling about, in a variety of clothing styles. Entrance booths appeared around much of one side, and passages headed off in many directions, with signs above each in a variety of languages. Tom and Liz noticed that most of the people in the area were adults, with very few children present.

“This looks like the same place we came from. Where is this? Or When is this?” asked Tom.

“You are right, it’s the same place, but a much different time, about 10,000 years later. We bring new recruits in at times of low activity. This is our main Placetime for Era 47 operations.”

“It’s about two and a half million years in your past, in a very neutral location that will, in your time, be buried under a mile of ice. We use it as a station for training so we don’t have to maintain a strong temporal field around it.” replied Kara.

“Does everyone who comes to Time Camp come here, and now? Wouldn’t it get crowded?” asked Liz.

“Great question. No, people come here at staggered times, but they are divided by Eras. The entire place gets torn down and rebuilt about every 50,000 years to accommodate visitors from different Eras, as they have very different needs. For example, we need very different atmospheres for beings from Era 53 and beyond. It’s complicated, but understand that not all of our ‘visitors’ from the future breathe Oxygen,” commented Kara.

“Curiouser and Curiouser,” moaned Tom. Liz nodded in agreement, and they followed Kara into the massive station.

Kara said, “Your first stop will be Medical, followed by Enhancements. Since your Prime Mission will be in your Era, you won’t need education. I’ll be with you the whole time, so you don’t need to worry.”

At Medical, they were introduced to a small Asian woman named Jade. “Good to see you again, Tom and Liz. I will take your medical profile”, she said.

“What do you mean again?” asked Liz.

Jade chuckled. “Sorry. You’ll get used to that. We’re very good friends in your future. This happens to be the first time you have seen me, but I’ve known you for years. If this timeline stays solid, you’ll be the sponsor parents of my daughter Lindsay.”

“My head is spinning, but we’ll take your word for it,” laughed Liz.

They submitted to a barrage of tests with equipment that they did not recognize. Tom asked, “What is this stuff?”

Jade said, “The best primitive equipment that they could make for us Level 47’s. Without full Level 50+ enhancements, this is the limit of what we can comprehend. It does fully interface with Level 50 and beyond, so they know what we are testing and how to interpret it.”

“So do we pass?” asked Tom.

“With flying colors,” replied Jade. “Now on to Enhancements if you’re ready”.

“I guess so, we’re pretty nervous about this”, said Liz. Tom nodded in agreement.

“Not to worry. The Enhancements have been grown for a year and tested on an analog of your body, so there’s no risk of rejection or malfunction,” commented Jade.

“A year? Oh, wait, the time thing. We get it. It’s still a bit strange,” said Tom.

They went across the hall to Enhancements, with Jade leading the way. She had them sit, and gave them each a cup of liquid to drink, and a tissue. “It’s a bit primitive but it works,” said Jade.

“What’s the tissue for?” asked Liz.

“As soon as you swallow the liquid, the agents will incorporate themselves into your cerebral-neural system. The signal of incorporation will um, come out your nose.”

“Hmm, OK,” said Tom. He took the drink in one swallow, and before he could set the glass down, he sneezed violently into the tissue.

“Look at it,” said Jade. It was of course snotty, but bright purple. “Purple is Good. Orange is Bad,” said Jade. “Orange means the match didn’t work, and we’d have to try again.”

Liz did the same. Sneeze, Purple, Good!

Tom said, “I don’t feel different. Did it work?”

Kara said, “We haven’t turned them on yet. You might want to sit down.”

They sat down on the chairs nearby. “Ready?” asked Jade. They nodded their assent.

Kara and Jade looked at each other and nodded. Immediately, Tom and Liz experienced a flood of sensations that left them reeling – motion, thoughts, sounds, sights, sensations.

Jade hollered to them over the roar, “Think ENHANCEMENTS OFF!”

They both thought *ENHANCEMENTS OFF*, and immediately, the sensations disappeared.

It took a bit of time for them to recover. Once they had their bearings back, they asked “What in the blazes was that?”

Jade replied, “These enhancements are very complex, but at their core, they provide four functions. One is a temporal flow detector, to let you know how strong the time flow is around you, and to warn you of impending temporal violations. It’s called the Timeline ability. The second one allows you to record sensations that you are experiencing – that’s the main purpose of the enhancements. The third lets you communicate with anyone and anything that is enhancement enabled while you are on a mission. And the fourth will control certain biological functions while you are on a mission.”

“I’m not so sure I want all of that control inside of me!” exclaimed Liz. She was visibly upset.

“Please relax. You will have complete control over most of these functions, once you learn to talk to them. Over the next two weeks, you will learn how to use and control them. They will become second nature to you, I promise. For now, I will disable them so you don’t have any problems until we meet tomorrow.”

Jade led them to a suite similar to the one at Recruitment, where they wearily drifted off to sleep. When they awoke and emerged, Kara was right there. “So, ready for Enhancement training?” she asked.

“I guess so. Time to tame the beasts within,” commented Tom. Kara led them back to Jade, who was their coach for the Enhancement training.

The next week was taken up with intense sessions where they learned to turn on and off the various senses, and, strangely enough, to be able to communicate with each other without speaking!

The first thing they learned was that the Timeline and biological controls were pretty much unconscious and automatic. The temporal controls showed them how strong the critical timelines were to any place they were, so they knew which places or actions to avoid in order to avoid disrupting the time line. Of course inside Time Camp, they needed a simulator to provide that input, but they learned how to deal with it in any case.

The biological controls were pretty much automatic, although they could control some of them. The main function was to make the travellers sterile while on a trip, so they couldn’t have or make children in a strange time. It also served to make them aware of impending infections, and render them harmless or minimize the symptoms and effects of toxic substances.

They learned how to turn on and off the experiential recording that was the critical portion of their roles as temporal observers. Once on, it would record all of their experiences. They learned that they alone could control exactly how much of that recorded information was transferred back to headquarters when they returned from a trip. That gave them some degree of comfort knowing that their personal experiences weren’t totally open to the observation of some anonymous future people!

The last area of training was on communications. They learned how to communicate mentally with each other, first by announcing their availability to communicate, and then by initiating and accepting a communication link with each other, or with intelligent devices in the vicinity.

At first, they were on a restricted access, so they didn’t interrupt other people or devices in the Time Camp station. Once they learned how to control their access, they were granted more access by Jade to the devices, and eventually to more people in Time Camp.

As they worked to master their communication ability, they were introduced to other new visitors to Time Camp and spent time interfacing with them. They learned how to control the amount and speed of transfer of information, and to accept greater volumes of information from other senders, and to automatically control the flow. By the end of the two weeks, they had very good control of all of the aspects of their enhancements: biological, Timeline, recording and communication.

“Now that you can control your enhancements, we’re going to get you ready for your Prime Mission. It’s a real observational mission in a near timeline, and you’re expected to be able to control your enhancements AND act properly to be able to complete the mission without getting into trouble,” noted Kara.

“What if we screw up? I don’t want to be the guy that ruined time!” exclaimed Tom.

“Not to worry, so much. Follow the temporal Green Line, and remember, there’s a Help Beacon active in your assignment time, so if you get in trouble, shout to the beacon through your enhancements and help will come…though that would dim your chances of passing your Prime Mission I’m afraid,” said Kara.

“I guess that’s to be expected. It’s a test. So where, I mean where/when are we going?” asked Tom.

“You’ll be going back to Germany, 1989, to the fall of the Berlin Wall. There were enough people there that you could mix in, and not far enough back that you’ll get temporal shock,” said Kara.

“You mean we have no escort? We’re on our own?” asked Liz, concerned.

“Yup. This one is all about you two. We’ll be looking in on you from Intertime Zone, but we won’t bail you out unless you call for help or you stray into the Red Zone of the timeline,” answered Kara.

“Don’t we need to learn German or something?” asked Liz.

“Not really. There were enough Westerners in the area that you’ll do fine with a bit of conversational German, and posing as Americans visiting the area,” said Kara.

She continued, “Now, before you go, I want you to access and download a briefing from the information server, named ‘Watson2-001’. Go ahead and pull it now, and make sure to save it.”

Tom and Liz mentally accessed the database and downloaded the information into their brains. Immediately, they knew and had access to an incredible store of information about East/West German relations, and the events leading up to, and following, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989!

For their final preparations, they went to Wardrobe and chose clothing appropriate to their status as tourists from America visiting West Germany. Completing their packing and orientation, they returned to the main departures room and made their first trip to the dispatcher, with Kara in tow as an observer.

Their communication ability told them that their operator was named George. “Hello George. We’re on our Prime Mission. Please set us up for November 7, 1989, Frankfurt Germany Timestation 1, 0800 Local.”

George replied, “Good luck Liz and Tom. November 7, 1989, 0800, Frankfurt TimeStation. Please use Booth 55. Return in +1?”

Tom and Liz stumbled a bit but remembered that their expected return to this place/time was to be one minute after their departure. “Booth 55, +1, Good Day,” said Tom, and George smiled and gave him a ‘thumbs up’ and pointed them to Booth 55.

Back at the Watson’s house, Laura was nearly jumping off of the couch. “So you DID go to Germany! You were at the falling of the wall! You WERE in my picture!” she shouted.

“Yes, we were there, and it’s my fault that we got in the picture,” said Liz. “We strayed into the main action and I saw the temporal flow go orange, but I didn’t react in time to get out of the photo.”

“Laura, I’m so sorry that I snapped at you Friday. It’s just to us, it just happened, and I couldn’t believe that you had found us out,” said Liz, apologetically.

Laura went to her mother and gave her a hug. “I forgive you. I knew that something strange was going on, and we are all so glad that you are telling us the truth, as freaking strange as it is!”

Everyone relaxed a bit and took a deep breath. They all realized that this was an amazing moment for the Watson family.

“Are you kids ready for the rest?” asked Tom. The kids all nodded in agreement, and he set about telling the rest of the story.

Chapter 14: The Wall Falls

Tom and Liz nervously approached booth 55. As they neared the door, a display lit up in blue with their names and the target date, time and location. Their enhancements saw the booth and it asked them if they were both ready. They had practiced this part, and acknowledged. It then warned them that biologicals would be set to nonfertile for the duration of the trip, and a temporal beacon would accompany them. They acknowledged those messages, and the doors opened. Kara waved at them and the portal closed. The breathed a heavy sigh, and prepared for the next step.

As the transit completed, their enhancements received the message %FRANKFURT TIMESTATION, 1989 NOVEMBER 7, 0800 WELCOME%. The doors opened, and they emerged to a small inner office of a shipping company in the city of Frankfurt, Germany, two days before the fall of the wall.

Immediately, they saw the broadcast of two other people with enhancements, the receptionist, and a worker in the warehouse. *Welcome*, sent Greta, the secretary and operator. *GutenTag, und good luck on your prime mission!*. They also received an %ON% ping from the microscopic temporal help beacon that would be near them as they traveled.

They traveled with two rolling suitcases, a 35mm camera, and Liz carried a purse. They dressed in casual clothing, appropriate for tourists from America visiting Germany on a vacation. The exited the facility, walked two blocks to the streetcar stop, and purchased a streetcar tickets with some Deutschemark coins they had been provided. Following the maps, they navigated the excellent German surface rail system to get to the main Hautptbaunhof, or train station, in the city of Frankfurt.

There, they had to get tickets to go North to Berlin. As they approached the ticket counters, they asked in broken German and English for round trip tickets to Berlin. The ticket agent asked them, “First class or tourist?”

Liz said “First Class,” and her temporal beacon flashed yellow. Immediately, she said “Sorry, I mean tourist.” The beacon faded to green, and they purchased two tickets in tourist class for Berlin. *That was strange,* Liz sent to Tom.

*Yeah, there must be someone in First Class that we shouldn’t meet,* replied Tom silently to Liz.

Once on the train, they made themselves comfortable, and had an uneventful but long ride to Berlin. That had a chance to talk with some German citizens who spoke very good English, and Tom had a chance to practice some German which was part of his downloaded briefing. He found that he kind of knew the words, but the pronunciation was difficult to get right. There were a few hilarious moments as he mispronounced a few phrases, and his new friends roared with kind laughter at his mismanagement of their national language.

Upon arrival at Berlin’s Haputbonhauf, they parted with their new friends, and chose their local transportation to their hotel, which had been reserved for them and confirmed by the agent at the Frankfurt TimeStation. It was a lovely but small hotel, and had a nice pub on the first floor. Tom and Liz checked in and headed to the pub for a couple of cold German Lagers and an excellent German meal of roast beef, gravy, fried potato puffs, pickled cabbage and a cherry streusel mit coffee for dessert.

Full and relaxed, they chose to retire early, rise with the sun, and actually be tourists!

As the change of East German government had taken place on October 18th, the expectation of a major shift in relations between East and West Germany was expected. Tourism was heavy and there was a strong feeling of impending change in the air on the 8th of November, 1989.

Tom and Liz spent the 8th of November walking the various areas of free West Germany. As they were instructed, they were permitted to dine and purchase small items of clothing or souvenirs, but they were to surrender them back to Wardrobe on their return to Time Camp. They had a great morning walking around West Berlin, and Tom even took pictures with the camera he was given. He hoped that they would actually come out, and he could see them someday!

They concluded their day with a simple dinner in one of the fine Italian restaurants, sampling a pizza with olives and artichoke hearts, and washing it down with a clean wheat beer.

The next day, November 9th, they stayed near the hotel and watched the live newscast where it was announced that East Germans were free to travel west. Then they went outside and watched as thousands of citizens passed through the previously deadly passages. They kept their personal recorders running as they watched people streaming through the gates and celebrating.

On the 10th, the bulldozers arrived and started dismantling the walls. Tom and Liz were on hand to record the events, and the emotional energy was overwhelming to both of them. While observing the activities, Liz strayed very close to a man using a sledge to break the wall, and didn’t notice a man with a camera in the background. Immediately, her temporal enhancement flared orange, and she pulled back, frightened. She rejoined Tom near the back of the crowd, and observed the historical rejoining of West and East at a safer distance.

On the 11th of November, she and Tom headed back to Frankfurt and returned to the warehouse. *Welcome back* chimed the receptionist into their heads. *Ready to return to Time Camp?*

*Yes!* They acknowledged, and the portal opened for them. It reminded them %RETURN TO TIME CAMP +1 FROM DEPARTURE. READY?%

They acknowledged and were soon back in the grand hall, with Kara waiting for them. Just a minute had passed in her time, and she was expecting their return.

“Well, how was it?” asked Kara, as they walked from Booth 55 to the debriefing area.

“Amazing!” exclaimed Liz, finally aware that she had just completed her Prime Mission. Tom was equally excited. They both felt very proud to have completed a solo mission as observers in time!

“Great! Now all you need to do is Brain Dump and we can talk about the next steps,” said Kara.

They went to the debrief area, and as they did, Tom and Liz talked about which experiences they should dump. They agreed on the televised portions, the free passage, and the wall coming down. They would omit the travel and general tourist sections.

“That’s good. The futurists are usually not concerned about you your travels, only the historical events from your eyes. Good choices, “ said Kara.

“One question,” said Liz, a bit hesitantly. “I tripped an Orange Timeline alert once. Am I in big trouble for that?”

Kara smiled and replied, “No Liz, you won’t go to Time Prison for that. It was an honest mistake with very little warning. We watched that from the outside and believe me, there’s no reason at all for you to worry. Although your picture may make it into the history books.”

“Really? Isn’t that a problem?”

“Not so much, Liz. See, many people look like many others, so it’s not a huge deal. I doubt many people will notice.”

“That makes me feel better,” said Liz. “Let’s get this brain dump over with!”

In Jade’s office, they interfaced with the system and uploaded the correct memories and experiences and saved them.

Jade asked them, “So did your enhancements work OK? Did you have any problems?”

Tom replied, “No, they worked just fine. We were able to send to one another and the operators at the TimeStation. No alerts from the biologicals. Recording was perfect, and we know for certain that the TimeLine alert works just fine!”

Jade smiled and said, “Yes, I heard. All’s well that ends well, Watsons!”

Once they were done uploading their recordings, they met up with Kara once more. She asked them, “So, are you hooked? Do you want more?”

“Heck yeah!” exclaimed Tom and Liz. “This beats living in our own time.”

“Hold on, you two. You know that you’ll have to spend a lot your lives in your own time? Especially if you include your kids in this adventure?” asked Kara.

“Let’s talk about that. How do you plan to include the kids?” asked Liz.

“Well, we’ve found that for longer observations, families tend to be more stable, and we get a huge variety of emotional response variations from historic events with older and younger observers. The challenge is that we can’t keep them away from their timeline too long, or they will grow too fast while they are gone in time, and they will arouse suspicion in their own time,” replied Kara.

“So, we can take the kids, but not too often, and not for too long? Kind of like super-exclusive vacations?” asked Tom.

“Right. And I’ll warn you, if something happens and you are gone too long temporally, and the kids grow too quickly, you may have to move to another city without warning to keep your friends and relatives from catching on. This will be one of the hardest things for your kids to agree to,” said Kara.

“I can see that. Our kids are pretty stuck to their friends. So how do we go about ‘recruiting’ our kids?” asked Tom.

Kara replied, “Be honest. Sit them down. Tell them the whole story. Stress the adventure. I know them all well. They will be receptive. They’ll come around. “

“And by the way, you’ll receive a handsome consulting stipend from our Era 47 company for your efforts. So it will be financially worth your while in your own time.”

“Nice!” said Tom. “The old Toyota is on its last legs!”

Tom and Liz said their goodbyes, and returned to the Buffalo TimeStation exactly one minute after they left on Thursday evening during their business trip. Then they headed back to the convention and wrapped it up on Friday afternoon, heading back to Erie.

Chapter 15: The Decision

Around the couch, the kids were silent and looked a bit troubled. They weren’t exactly sure what was being asked of them, but they kind of understood.

Finally, Jenna piped up. “So, you are asking us to join you in time trips to witness historic events. It won’t be forever, but we’ll be gone a while and when we get back, it will be like we never left to people in our own time. Is that right?”

“That’s right, honey,” said Tom. “We don’t know exactly when they will call us for missions, but we’ll need to be able to go several times a year. Then we’ll come back right after we left, but we’ll have grown older while we were gone,” said Tom.

Laura asked, “AND we’ll get these enhancement thingies?”

Liz said, “Yes, but they are turned off in our own time. So you are only superwoman when you are time traveling!” Laura made a fake frown.

“It’s important that you all agree to this on your own, without us forcing you. And if we sign up as a family we’ll need a cover to explain why we go out of town so much. The closest TimeStations are Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and we’ll need some reasons for that,” said the kids’ Dad.

Andy said, “So let me get this straight. I get to do everything I can do today, AND I get to do stuff that nobody else IN THE WORLD will be able to do? And I get secret powers? Count me in!”

Laura chimed in, “Um, so I won’t have Facebook or my phone or my friends when we do these trips?”

Liz said, “No, but you will have amazing connections to information you have never imagined, you will see famous historical events first-hand, and we can mentally talk to each other and other travelers while we’re on assignment.”

The room was silent for a few minutes. Everyone wanted to process their thoughts and emotions.

Finally, Tom said, “Let’s sleep on this. No talking about it to anyone outside this family. Give us an answer after school tomorrow.”

Monday dawned as hectic as it always does for a school day. Everyone got caught up in work, school, activities and evening stuff. Dinner was a late 8PM meal of soup and sandwiches at the kitchen table.

As they munched on dinner, the family debriefed on the actions of the day. Finally, Tom called for silence. They all knew what he wanted. “So what are your decisions?” he asked each of the three Watson kids.

Andy said, “I want to do it, for sure.”

Jenna said, “I think so, but I think I’ll miss my friends when I’m not here.”

Laura said “Me too. I’m very connected. But it sounds super exciting.”

Their mom asked, “So is everyone in?”

A show of hands indicated that the whole family was in!

Tom said, “Excellent. I’m proud of all of you for your courage and the thought you put into this.”

Laura piped in, “So, how soon until we get to time travel? I’m excited to go!”

Liz explained, “Well, we think the best time to travel is over school breaks, where you may not see people for a while. That way if you grow, or ahem, ‘change’ over the trip, it’s not so noticeable. So our next opportunity is Spring Break, and we think we may be able to squeeze in our mandatory Time Camp training trip then. Is everyone up for that?”

A chorus of “YES!” met the question. The Watson family was going to Time Camp!

BOOK TWO: THE WATSONS GO TO TIME CAMP

Chapter 16: Preparation

Spring Break was only three weeks away. After the family decision, the kids had a fresh infusion of energy, and they each worked really hard to make sure their grades were good and no one got sick or hurt. They peppered their parents with tons of questions about Time Camp, some of which they could answer and some they knew nothing about. It was difficult to keep their friends out of their secret, but they had made a family promise, and they kept it.

On Tuesday evening after the meeting, Tom called a number that connected him to the Tonawanda TimeStation operator, and confirmed to the agent that the family was in. They arranged to return on Friday night of the four-day school break, so Tom and Liz would not miss any work, and they would have the weekend to recover in Erie after the trip.

As break approached, the kids started packing. Their parents had to tell them that they really shouldn’t take anything with them to Time Camp – they would be provided with everything they needed, and they would have to leave their stuff in the Van in Buffalo. They were worried that their phones and electronics would be stolen, but Liz assured them that they would only be in the building for a few minutes of elapsed time. They booked a hotel for the Friday night after their return, so they wouldn’t have to drive in the dark.

Friday came, and the kids were home from school and practically bursting with energy and excitement. They cleaned and organized their rooms, arranged to have the dogs watched, and told their friends that they were going to see a hockey game, which was partially true – they planned to see the Sabres on Saturday if all went well.

The trip to Buffalo was uneventful in the sunny midwinter thaw that sometimes interrupted the normal blanket of snow. As they rolled up to the warehouse in Tonawanda, Andy said, “I’m nervous. What if something bad happens?”

“I can’t say there’s no risk, Honey,” said his mother, “but I know these people run a tight ship. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

Chapter 17: Off to Camp!

Tom took a deep breath. “Are you ready for this, family?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be, Dad,” said Andy, and they all climbed out of their red van.

Then, they locked the car, walked toward the warehouse, and as they opened the door, Liz and Tom’s enhancements activated.

*Welcome, Liz and Tom,* sent Abby, the receptionist. “Hello Laura, Jenna and Andy. Welcome to the team!” she said aloud to the kids. They smiled and Laura said, “We’re kind of nervous. This is our first, well, time!”

Everyone chuckled at that, and the ice was broken. Liz sent, *Abby, do we need any other prep before we head to Time Camp?*

Abby shook her head, and sent, *No, you are ready. Give the orders and we’ll get you all going!*

Liz said aloud, “Abby, please set up the booth for Time Camp, Era 47, to follow our last return.”

Abby replied, “Time Camp, Era 47. Return in +1?”

Liz followed up with the TimeStation protocol: “Return in +1. Have a Good Day!” Everyone smiled.

The portal opened, and the family filed into the booth. On the way in, Jenna asked, “What was that all about?”

Tom replied, “The operators need to know exactly where and when to send you, and how to program the units for your return. We told them to send us to Time Camp, and to arrive just after our last time we left there. The ‘Plus 1’ was to indicate that when we return here, we are to come in a minute from our departure, so we don’t catch ourselves coming and going. There’s a kind of protocol that operators and travelers use, to avoid mistakes. It’s adapted from the interchange that pilots use with air traffic controllers.”

“Cool,” said Andy. “I’ve always wanted to be a pilot.”

“Ready to go to Time Camp?” Tom asked the family. They nodded in agreement. “Here we go!”

The booth’s display flashed blue and the far door opened on the huge station of Time Camp. Kara and Jade were waiting for them and greeted the parents with a hug.

Tom introduced them all. “Kids, this is Kara, our training guide, and Jade, our medical advisor. This is Jenna, Andy and Laura.” Greetings were exchanged all over, and the kids stared wide-eyed at the huge facility, bustling with activity.

“This place is huge!” exclaimed Laura. “Wouldn’t this building be visible from satellite photos?”

Kara replied, “It would in your time. But we’re over 2 million years in your past, and the hunk of rock this is built on will be covered by ice in your time. We’re pretty safe here, and well hidden in time.”

Jenna was next. “How did this place get built?”

Jade answered. “It’s actually been destroyed and rebuilt several times in its life. It started out as a smaller research station for beings, well, people, from the far future. As they worked backwards and discovered the boundaries in time, they developed different versions of Time Camp to accommodate the research and other needs of the teams working each side of a boundary.”

“What’s a boundary?” asked Andy.

Kara said, “The timeline is broken into many eras. Each era is separated from the ones before and after by some major change in technology, human development or a huge cultural shift. In general, people in one era can communicate or work in close eras, because communication is difficult across the boundaries. The exception is your time period, which is called Era 47. Era 47 is the last civilized pre-joined era, meaning you can communicate well with most eras that came before you. That’s why the Temporal Guild is so excited to get people from our time to be observers and agents – we can go pretty far into the past and fit in, with the proper training, and we can pick up on much of the technology. We can go where the future people can’t!”

Tom said, “Our first guide, Lana, was from a future era, and it was a bit obvious that she was not ‘one of us’. I gather that learning to fit in is very important when you travel in time!”

“Well said,” replied Kara. “Let’s do a tour before we get down to business!”

Jade excused herself from the group and told them to find her when they were done.

Chapter 18: The Grand Tour

They began by wandering around the huge open departures and arrivals room. In the center were the operators, who arranged the trips for the travelers. Along much of the outside were the time travel booths. Most of them were the same size, and numbered in several languages. A couple of the booths were very large. Blue displays occasionally showed departures and arrivals.

As they watched, they saw mostly individuals, but sometimes couples and rarely a family move into or out of the booths on their way to another time and place.

“Dad, look! Cowboys!” hollered Andy, as he pointed at a couple of men decked out in chaps, boots with spurs, hats and pistols in holsters. Tom activated his enhancements, and sent a mental greeting to the cowboys, who stopped, turned and walked over to the family.

“Howdy Andy. Evenin’ Miss Jenna, Miss Laura,” replied the first man. The girls blushed and smiled at the men. “We’re trying to stay in character as we’re headed out to keep an eye on things in Colorado Territory in 1870. I’m Jake, originally from Detroit, recruited in 1980. Bobby there was from Denver, recruited in 2020.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing the old Denver City,” grinned Bobby, tipping his hat at the ladies. “You kids study hard. We need good strong families watching and keeping things right downtime.”

The men shook hands with Andy and Tom, and headed back to their booth which was waiting for their departure.

“Wow! Do you think I’ll ever get to be a cowboy?” asked Andy.

“Only if you get over your fear of horses and cows,” said Jenna. Andy glared at her.

“Hey, hey. There’s plenty of time to work on that stuff. Let’s keep looking.” said their mother.

As they walked around the huge room, they noticed an African American family with two boys emerging from a booth. They caught the eyes of the boys and approached them. Jenna said, “Wow, other kids time traveling! Where were you? I mean when were you? I mean…”

“You’re new aren’t you? You can’t send yet.” said the younger boy, about 10. “I’m Jacob. This is my brother Clay. We’re from 2008 Los Angeles.”

Clay, 15, interjected, “We just got back from Harrisburg, witnessing the Three Mile Island incident in March 1979. It was a minor disaster, but it had a huge impact on public opinion of nuclear power in the late 20th century.”

“Wow. I just read about that in American History,” said Jenna. “How was the trip?”

“It was fine, no problems. Harrisburg is not the most diverse place in 1979, but we got through OK.” Replied Jacob.

“It’s a little tougher for us to go back, owing to our skin color,” commented their father. He introduced himself as David Johnson, and his wife Elaine. “Our perspective is very important, but we do run into a lot of discrimination, and our trips have to be planned very carefully before 1970.”

“Well, welcome back to Time Camp. I hope your trip was good,” replied Tom. The Johnsons said their goodbyes and headed off for debrief and Brain Dump.

Chapter 20: A Future History Lesson

As they continued the tour, they saw many branching hallways extending off into the distance. Kara led them to one labeled “Education”.

“Here’s where we fill your heads with information before your trips,” said Kara. “If you are going close-time, we just brief you on the things that have just happened, and especially about the things that have not yet happened, so you don’t disclose information to people in the timeline. If you are headed further back, you’ll need cultural and maybe language training, so you will know how to behave and how to talk.”

Andy said, “Aww, do you mean we have to study?”

Kara laughed. “Well, we put most of it in your head for you, but you will have to practice some things out loud with us to make sure that your accents and mannerisms are close enough that you won’t be easily discovered as a traveler. Then we can let you go without risk that you’ll blow your cover. But your first couple of trips won’t require a lot of education.”

Laura replied, “Wow. You mean that you can fill my head with information? That I don’t have to read it all?”

Kara smiled and replied, “That’s right. In fact, once you have enhancements, you can request downloads of just about any material. Then, if we have enough material about an era, we’ll help you learn it. Maybe someday, you will be the pioneers in a new place or era, and get to bring back fresh recordings, and provide the clues that help us prepare others to work in that time. Maybe ancient Egypt or Colonial America!”

Liz asked, “So just how many families do you have that can observe in our eras?”

Kara replied, “Well, the number changes all of the time, and since we are out of time, we continue to recruit in your time and up and downtime from you. But believe me that we need many people from your time who can adapt and help us map out and explore your past. Since no one after Era 47 can go back, we need lots of recruits from the late 47th like you, who understand technology but can fit into older cultures.”

“What happened after our era? You mention Era 50, but that means there are two eras between the tattoo people and us,” asked Laura.

Kara frowned. “You’ll learn more later, but I’ll tell you this. There was a huge world war after your era. It pretty much destroyed the planet and nearly wiped out the human race. That and the reconstruction after it took around 100 years. Once that was past, we eventually grew up as a species, and the era of joining and huge technological and cultural change took place, leading to the discovery of the time travel principles and the establishment of the Temporal Guild. But those of us from Era 47 are discouraged from going past our era. We’re free to move into the past as agents and observers, but the future is pretty much off limits.”

That bothered the kids, and the parents as well. “Aren’t we good enough to go into the future?” asked Jenna.

Kara said, “It’s not that. Era 48 is terribly dangerous for most people. There is no law, and the land is poisoned. Hundreds of future explorers lost their lives pushing back into that era from the future. Their first stable station was at the end of our era – right before the War, and there are no TimeStation portals in Era 48. Era 49 is very temporally sensitive, as we literally clawed back from barbarism to civilization and established a new, enlightened culture. So Era 50 is the first ‘clean’ timeline after ours, and the people there have a hard time dealing with us as we’re not joined like they are. A few 47’s have gone there, but more as historians or translators than as visitors. We just don’t fit in there.”

“Hmmph. Maybe someday we’ll change all that,” commented Laura.

“Moving on,” replied Kara, as she led the family across a connecting corridor to an area marked ‘Wardrobe’.

In this area, they saw many rooms labeled with different dates: ‘Era 47, 1960-1964’ and similar labels. Kara noted, “If you are going into the past, we keep the master costumes here so we can outfit you and work with you on the dressing and daily routines of the time. Your cowboy friends came here before they left, and learned how to dress and how to act in their time.”

“Will we get costumes when we travel?” asked Jenna.

Liz mentioned, “We did when we went to see the Berlin Wall come down. It was not a huge change for us, but my clothes in particular were too new for that time. We selected some items from 1989 and they duped them in our sizes and filled our suitcases for our trip.”

“Cool,” said Jenna. She was fascinated with clothing and fashion and this was right up her alley. She led a brief exploration of several rooms, taking great delight in the many items of clothing and other props found there. It was like a huge museum of culture and fashion!

After the wardrobe tour, they visited an immense area called ‘Recreation’. In it were gymnasiums, ball fields, gaming rooms, and pools. Laura, the most athletic of the family, was very interested in this area, as were all of the kids. “Do we get to play here?” she asked.

Kara replied, “Certainly. We use this area for two purposes. First, when you are here as Campers, you’ll need a place to relax after training and procedures. And second, if you are traveling to a time where sports or games are different, you may need to learn the rules and practice, so you may be pulled into events to help people and families get accustomed to sports and recreation over the timeline.”

“Wow. So we could play any sport from any time?” asked Andy.

“Pretty much,” replied Kara. “I’m sure we’ll be back here in a few days, so keep that as a reward for hard work.”

The tour continued. “Here’s Medical, and it’s about time for your appointments with Jade,” mentioned Kara, as they entered the medical suite. They went across to Jade’s suite and went in. She looked up from her desk and said, “Perfect timing. Let’s get started!”

Chapter 21: Medical

Each of the kids had a separate private meeting with Jade. She screened them and performed a thorough Era 50-enhanced biological screening on them. They all passed, and joined their parents in the large sitting room.

Jade began, “You are all healthy, which we pretty much knew. It’s time to start the enhancements. “

Laura interrupted, “So just what are these enhancements? Are they dangerous? Can you see them?”

Jade smiled. “As your parents can attest, they are perfectly safe, and you can turn them on and off at will. They are invisible from the outside, and in fact, your Era 47 medical capabilities can’t even detect them. They are biological in nature, but have some artificial components. They integrate with your brain and nervous system, and actually talk to your various body parts. They store information in your unused brain neurons. You only use about ten percent of your brain’s storage, so there’s lots of room for additional information!”

Jade continued, “From the scans we performed, we developed a custom formula for each of you. It takes about a year to grow and test them on virtual versions of you, but the results are excellent, and the development takes place out of time, so the delivery is immediate. See? Here they come!” A panel opened and three cups appeared with each of the kids’ names on them.

“You won’t feel a thing until we turn them on, but that will be a very strange experience for each of you. Do you want to be alone, or do you want to go through it together?”

Jenna, Andy and Laura looked at each other. “We’re a family” said Laura. “We do things together.” The others nodded.

“OK, I’ll warn you that you will be shouting into each others’ heads until you can control the enhancements, so you may want to apologize in advance. Just kidding!” said Jade.

They each picked up their cups of liquid and three tissues. The kids remembered their parents’ stories, and got the tissues ready. They swallowed the drink and promptly sneezed. Purple, purple, purple…all Good!

Jade said, “We’ll turn them on at the same time, and only us in this room will be in your circle. Remember, think the words ‘ENHANCEMENTS OFF’ to stop the sensations. Ready?”

The kids took a deep breath and nodded.

Immediately, they were flooded with information, overwhelming their vision, their hearing, even their sense of smell and taste.

“OhGodOhGodOhGod..ahhhhhhh!”, moaned Laura, as she struggled to take in the deluge of inputs. There were colors, numbers, signals, information and strange sensations all screaming for her attention. She felt as if she had fallen out of a raft in a whitewater river, and was being pushed downstream and held under water.

Andy and Jenna were in a similar state. Jenna was as stiff as a board, but her eyes were wild. Andy was shaking, wide-eyed, but didn’t see anything in front of him.

“Can’t you stop it?” cried Liz. She was afraid her children were being hurt.

Jade quickly replied, “They are in no danger. They will find the switch soon, and we’ll move on once they recover.”

*ENHANCEMENTS OFF!* thought Laura, and like turning off a light switch in a bright room, the sensations stopped. She caught her breath, looked around, and watched her younger twin siblings recover their senses as well and gain their composure.

Chapter 22: Adaptation

After they sat for a bit, Jade explained to them, “Your enhancements give you four distinct capabilities: TimeLine awareness, Biological control, Communications and Sensation Recording. “ The kids tried to keep up, but they were overwhelmed and still a bit freaked out from the initial blast.

“Over the next two weeks, we’ll work with you on your control of your enhancements. When you are done, you’ll have full control and access to an incredible range of capabilities. Being younger, you will catch on much faster than your parents,” said Jade.

“Hey! I thought we were pretty quick studies,” complained Tom with a grin. He and Liz were relieved that the kids had survived their enhancement and activation, and were along the path to controlling their new abilities.

“I’m going to disable your enhancements for the night, and allow you all to rest. First thing in the morning, we start the real Time Camp!” said Jade, giving them each a hug and pushing them to the door.

The family went down the hall, with Tom and Liz leading the way. “Where are we going?” asked Andy.

“We are headed to our new family suite for a good night’s rest!” replied Tom, rounding a corner.

“How do you know where it is…wait, the enhancements told you, right?” said Jenna. Tom and Liz nodded.

“Soon, you’ll have access to so much information, you will be amazed,” said Liz.

They approached a door labeled “Era 47 Watson Family”. It opened and they went inside. It was a beautiful suite with four separate bedrooms and baths, a huge common room, and eating area and a patio that overlooked a huge waterfall and mountain range in the distance.

“Is anyone hungry?” asked Tom. Everyone chimed in, “Yes!”.

Tom said, “I think I know what we all need.” He nodded to the door, as someone knocked. As it swung open, an young lady brought in a tray of steaming chicken wings, sodas, and a bottle of wine for the adults.

“Wings!” cried the twins, and they pounced on the tray and proceeded to eat as if they hadn’t been fed in days. They thoroughly enjoyed a huge portion of Buffalo style chicken wings, curly fries, sodas and other snacks, prepared just like the tavern down the street from their house. “How did you do that?” asked Laura, as their feeding frenzy subsided.

“Well, I know what we like, and I was able to conjure up some clear memories of the taste and smell and size and appearance of our favorite dinners. I interfaced with the food system and we had a chat. After it did some research and knew what we wanted, it sent the order far enough back in time that it was ready right after we got here. Pretty neat trick, huh?” Tom was proud of his small accomplishment to make the family feel at home.

“Well, it was the best meal I’ve had in the last 2 million years!” joked Jenna, and they all shared a laugh.

After dinner, they each found in their rooms, a perfectly comfortable set of pajamas and a ‘to launder’ slot. Heading to their own private showers, they found their clothes clean and folded when they returned.

“Where’s the TV?” asked Andy as they assembled in PJ’s in the common room.

“I think we can do better than that,” said Liz. She nodded, and the lights came down, and in the middle of the room, a perfectly reproduced 3-dimensional arena appeared, about 10 feet on each side, in perfect resolution. The crowd noise rose. Taking the stage was Rascal Flatts, one of the kids’ favorite bands.

“Oh my gosh, it’s like we are right there!” shrieked Laura. The kids watched and sang along as the band played hit after hit. The perspective shifted occasionally to magnify the 3-dimensional view on the singers and focus on individual performers.

At a pause in the performance, Jenna, through tears in her eyes, turned to her parents and said, “How? How did you do this?”

Tom and Liz smiled. The kids’ mother explained, “This is what we produce as observers in time. We capture memories, emotions and experiences of real events, and save them for all to enjoy and appreciate. This is not even the full capability of what we can capture with our eyes and ears and our hearts. Someone went to this concert with enhancements and captured it for the universe to enjoy forever. You may even know the observers who made this recording.”

“What do you mean? We only know the Johnsons, and Bobby and Jake and Jade and Kara. Who else would we know?”

“You know the Watsons. And I have it on good faith that they were at a Rascal Flatts concert on assignment and recorded this.” Said Tom. “I don’t know when, for us, but it appears that we’ll do it someday, and since it’s in the library, I guess we can see it now even though we haven’t been there yet.”

“Whoa,” said Andy. “Strange, but I don’t care. Now please quiet down. My favorite song is starting!”

So the Watson family enjoyed a concert that they hadn’t yet attended, and one by one, the kids drifted off to sleep. Tom carried them each to their beds where they had a peaceful, restful night, their first of many in Time Camp.

Chapter 23: Control

The next day was filled with many adventures. As the kids awakened to the smell of a wonderful breakfast, they dressed and wandered to the common area. Their parents were already at the table, enjoying coffee and juice. Some light jazz played in the background.

“So today we learn how to control our enhancements?” asked Andy. “That will be sweet!”

Tom replied, “Well, it will take some time to learn to control them all. They will work with one ability at a time and then you’ll practice integrating them and simulating assignments. But that will take several days.”

“Sounds like fun. How was it when you two got enhanced?” asked Jenna.

“It was a little scary at first, but once you get used to them, they are amazing. In fact, when we were back in home time, I missed them,” said Liz.

“Why are they disabled in home time? I’d love to have these abilities at school”, asked Laura.

“Well, you are supposed to be ‘normal’ in home time, and I guess that you would have too many advantages over other people,” Liz replied.

“Well, let’s go! I’m excited to get started!” said Andy. The family gathered and left their suite.

They went to Jade’s office and she greeted them. “Good morning Watsons! Did you have a pleasant evening?”

“Yes we did! Dad conjured up some excellent wings for dinner and we got to see a concert that we recorded in the future,” said Jenna.

“That’s great! Pretty soon, you’ll be able to do those things on your own. Are you ready to get started?” she asked the kids. They all nodded their approval.

Tom said, “Well, have fun and study hard. Your Mom and I have some work to do ourselves, so we’ll catch you later.” He and Liz left and the kids remained with Jade.

“OK you three, let’s explore the world of enhancements. First up is TimeLine Alert. I’m going to re-enable your enhancements but they will be dormant. There, did you notice anything?” asked Jade.

“Just a ‘blip’,” said Laura. Jenna and Andy nodded.

“You’ll get that blip when your enhancements turn on and off, for example when you leave your home time TimeStation. It’s just a signal that they are coming on or offline. Now, I want each of you think the words “Enhancement Timeline On,” instructed Jade.

As Jenna thought *ENHANCEMENT TIMELINE ON*, the edges of her vision flashed blue for a moment and then settled down to a steady green glow, just visible at the edge of her field of vision. It made her want to turn her head both ways to see what was there, but the color didn’t change. Andy and Laura were also looking to the either side, confused.

“Your brain will adapt very soon, and you won’t notice the colors or want to turn your head,” said Jade.

“What is this used for?” asked Jenna. “What does it mean?”

Jade explained, “The timeline is very sensitive in places, meaning that if you do certain things in certain places at certain times, you can change the future. We call this combination a ‘placetime’. In some placetimes, your actions will not have much impact on the timeline. Sensitive placetimes are detectable by your enhancements, and this will warn you. Obviously, in Time Camp, we are protected from the real world, and there are very few sensitive placetimes, but we can simulate danger here, and you can learn how to change your actions to minimize it.”

Jenna continued her questioning. “So why is it dangerous to change the future? Wouldn’t you want to do that sometimes, to make the world a better place?”

Jade paused for a moment, and then spoke. “You might think so, but time is very complicated. Even small changes in the timeline can have huge impacts downstream. What may make tomorrow better may make the distant future disappear and be replaced with a completely different one. Here’s a good example. You already know that there is a terrible world war in your next downstream Era, called Era 48. Billions of people will die horribly, and our race will become nearly extinct. A person with good intentions may try to intervene to change the events that caused the war and they may succeed in changing the outcome. But without the war, the recovery would not have happened, interstellar propulsion would not have been created, and most important, time travel would not likely have been discovered. So it’s very important to the entire future timeline that bad things happen sometimes. This is one thing that you will absolutely have to believe and obey: As observers, you can’t ever tamper with outcomes!”

The kids were quiet for a minute as they absorbed these ideas. Jenna said, “I guess I understand, but it will be hard to not want to try to help!”

Jade said, “It is very hard to not intervene. And that’s exactly why the TimeLine sense is an important ability. It’s that extra outside warning that you are straying too close to a timeline change. So, let’s practice. We’ll need to go to recreation for this. Let’s move!”

So Jade and the three Watson kids headed out of her office. She said, “We’re going to simulate an event that you are sent to observe. There’s a baseball game going on in that stadium. In the fourth inning, a line drive is going to hit a spectator in section 12, killing her. It becomes an incident that changes how baseball stadiums deal with spectator safety. Let’s go in and wander around.”

They entered field 7, which was a huge outdoor space with a baseball stadium. As they walked, Jenna asked, “How did you get all of these people here, just for us?”

Jade smiled and said, “It’s really an elaborate simulation. We’re the only people here now, but the stadium is real. The rest of the ‘people’ are like holograms, but they are solid. They will talk to you but they aren’t real.”

“Cool!” said Andy.

They entered the stadium and started walking around. The scoreboard showed bottom of the third inning. As they walked around the back edge, the green glow in their vision started to shift to yellow. “Do you see the yellow?” asked Jade. All three kids nodded.

“What’s it mean?” asked Jenna.

“It means that we are getting close to a critical placetime. There’s no need to react to yellow, just be aware that something is going to happen somewhere close, sometime soon. One more point: if your Timeline sense suddenly changes to red, you should freeze and backtrack, and be as inconspicuous as possible.”

They continued walking around the back of the stadium, where the concessions and restrooms were built. Barely thirty seconds later, as they rounded a curve to a concession stand, their Timeline sense flashed red. Shocked, they all stopped and looked at Jade. “Just remain quiet and still and keep your eyes open,” whispered Jade. They backed up to the painted concrete block wall and watched anxiously as the red began to blink, slowly and then faster. Shortly, a man carrying a cardboard carrier with hot dogs, peanuts and two large cups of beer walked past them and headed for the stands. He wasn’t looking very carefully, and would have run into the kids had they not stopped and moved.

“That’s the victim’s husband. Had we run into him, it would have delayed his return to the stands, and his wife would have come looking for him. She wouldn’t sit in the same spot when she returned, and the ball would have not hit her in the fourth inning. So you see, sometimes you have to avoid interactions with the timeline, even before events happen,” explained Jade. Immediately, their Timeline alerts went back to yellow-green.

As they climbed into the stands, a touch of orange flared as they came through the stairway to section 12. Jade instructed them to turn and face the first row, and their alerts flared bright orange. Then she had them turn and face the upper stands, and the alerts flashed yellow. “That’s to help you decide how to choose your motions to stay in a safe placetime”, said Jade. The kids understood, and they climbed the bleachers to sit higher. “In a real observation, we’d normally have you split up, to get the most perspectives possible in the Sensory Record. But since we haven’t turned that on yet, let’s just watch as a group.”

So they sat as the teams exchanged places and the fourth inning began. “How long until it happens?” asked Jenna, looking down to try to see the victim-to-be.

“Three minutes twenty eight seconds. In a real assignment, your communications ability will tell you this if the exact time is known, and a specific event is to happen,” said Jade.

The next two hundred seconds passed very slowly for the kids. A growing anxiety built up in them, causing them to sweat and fidget. “I’m shaking!” said Jenna.

Jade reassured them, “That’s natural. Part of the value of these simulations is to get your mind and body used to the anticipation and the stresses of being a helpless observer. Ten, Nine, Eight!”

The kids did the rest of the countdown mentally, and their Timeline senses shimmered.

CRACK! Went the bat. The line drive headed straight for section 12, and the young lady, looking up in reaction to the sound, was hit squarely in the forehead with the ball. She flew back into the second row, spilling beer and knocking down a several people. Her husband jumped after her, and the crowd behind her began to get angry, and then show signs of alarm as it was clear she wasn’t moving.

Though there was no blood, her forehead was crushed and she had no pulse. A mounting sense of alarm grew and the crowd and players focused on the action in section 12. There were shouts of “Get an Ambulance!” and “She’s dead!”

Over the next moments, medical personnel came with a stretcher and carried the lady out, and a policeman escorted the husband, who was crying inconsolably. The stadium was eerily quiet, and play had stopped.

Moments later, the PA system announcer said, “Ladies and gentlemen. In light of this tragic accident, we will be cancelling this game. We hope that you understand and will keep the family of our unfortunate spectator in your thoughts and prayers. Good evening and safe travels home.”

As a sign of respect, the crowd rose to their feet. A standing ovation lasted perhaps a minute, and then the crowd began to head for the exits. Jade and the Watson kids joined the exodus. As they left, another spectator said to Andy, “That’s terrible. Never in a million years would I have thought that would happen!”

Andy paused for a bit, and then replied, “Yeah, it’s quite a shock.” Jenna and Laura were wiping tears from their eyes as they left.

Once outside, they headed for the door to Field 7. As they walked, Jade said, “Andy, it was good that you responded to the spectator. You see that there was no Timeline risk, and if you had stayed quiet, you would have stuck out more than if you had talked. And I need to remind you that this is only a simulation.”

Jenna said, “That’s hard to believe. It was so real! I’m still kind of shaky and I feel really bad about that lady.”

“I know you do, honey. As observers, you are allowed to have emotions. That’s part of what makes your recorded experiences so valuable. But you will have to really work hard to make sure that you don’t let the emotions and the experiences eat away at you. The Communication ability will help you to talk it out with each other, even if you can’t do it out loud. And if it’s too bad, I’m always there for you when you return from a trip.”

The kids participated in one more simulation, this one involving watching a couple meet for the first time. Jade explained that the couple would marry and their daughter would become the prime minister of Pakistan. In this simulation, their Timeline sense was used to keep them inconspicuous but able to observe the couple meeting, talking and leaving together.

Jade took the kids to an open eating area and she ordered chicken sandwiches, fries and milkshakes for them. As they finished eating, Jade explained the next step. “Up next are Biological controls. Are you ready to start?”

“I guess so. What does this ability do? Can I see through walls?” asked Andy.

“Not quite, Superman!” joked Jade. “It basically keeps you healthy and shall I say ‘safe’ when outside your home time.”

“What do you mean by ‘safe’?” asked Laura.

“Well, that’s the automatic part of the biological controls. Your body becomes temporarily sterile when out of home time. That means that observers can’t make or have children when on assignment,” explained Jade. Laura nodded and glanced away.

“Gross!” said Jenna. “Can we change the subject?” She was blushing. Andy was looking at his shoes.

“OK, just remember that part’s automatic, and it’s designed to keep you from changing the timeline. “

“The next aspect of Biological control is that your body will detect and destroy any infectious diseases you may be exposed to. This will be really important if you travel outside of your home time into the past, or you travel to other areas of the world. There are lots of bacteria and viruses that could hurt or kill you in other placetimes,” said Jade.

“How does it know?” asked Laura.

“Well, just like the normal white cells in your body, there are certain new white cells that are enabled when Biological control is activated, and they recognize any foreign body and isolate it. It can even speed up healing and minimize the effects of certain injuries.

“Hey, that’s what fixed up dad’s hand!” said Andy. “Now I get it. Not even a scar.”

“That’s right. It also sharpens your senses, but it can’t make them work any better than they usually do, so no peeking through walls,” said Jade. Andy sniffed in disappointment.

“So, turn it on and we’ll experiment,” said Jade.

Laura thought *ENHANCEMENT BIOLOGICAL ON*, and a voice in her head said %BIOLOGICAL ON. WARNING, SALMONELLA INFECTION DETECTED. QUARANTINE IN PROGRESS. EXPECT MILD SYMPTOMS FOR NEXT 3 MINUTES%

Immediately, she felt a bit queasy. “What is happening? It says that I have some salmon thing, is that poison?” she cried. Her brother and sister were also reacting with alarm.

Jade said, “Your lunch was actually doped with Salmonella bacteria. Your biologicals are scrubbing it from your system. It’s a field test.”

Laura said, “You mean you actually poisoned us? On purpose?”

Jade said, “Well, it’s technically not poison to you. It’s just a test to make sure your systems are working.”

%BIOLOGICAL REPORT. CONTAINMENT COMPLETE.% came into Laura’s head. She felt better immediately. “Wow, I feel much better. This could come in real handy when I get the flu at home!”

“It would, dear, but remember that your enhancements aren’t enabled in home time. It just wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the world.”

Jade continued. “A couple more things about Biologicals. You can simulate mild symptoms in cases where you are in an epidemic area. It will also neutralize many drugs, including alcohol if you wish, although you shouldn’t need that if you are the good kids I think you are.” All three nodded soberly.

“Let’s break for the day. Tomorrow we’ll start Communications. You should keep your biologicals and timeline abilities on from this point forward, mostly to get used to them. But also remember that we may throw some surprises your way, to test your abilities to react. Why don’t you head over to recreation and your parents can join you when they are done?”

The kids brightened, and took off running toward the recreation facilities. “Let’s hit the wave pool Laura!” shouted Jenna.

Andy said, “I’m going to try the BMX course. That should be a blast!”

Later, Andy had a chance to see his biologicals in action. Riding aggressively on the BMX course, he had a spectacular wipeout on the bike, and skinned his left thigh pretty good as he landed in the dirt and gravel. As he picked himself up, he received: %BIOLOGICAL ALERT. FLESH WOUND, LEFT LEG. CLOTTING AND ACCELERATING SKIN REGENERATION. ESTIMATED TIME 10 MINUTES. PLEASE CLEAN WOUND.%

He walked over to the locker room, wet a towel and rubbed off the gravel and dirt and blood. He felt no pain. He sat and watched as his leg scabbed over, the skin knit up and the new skin aged to match his leg, leaving no marks. Tom came into the course just as his enhancement followed up: %BIOLOGICAL REPORT: HEALING COMPLETE.%

Andy explained the accident and the healing. “That was awesome! I’m as good as new!”

Tom cautioned him, “You aren’t bulletproof though. Had you broken a bone, you may still have needed medical care. Try to not ride alone until you get Communications, OK?”

Andy nodded. “OK. Want to ride with me?”

“Sure!” said Tom, and they spent the next hour racing around the BMX course, sweating and having a wonderful time.

Chapter 24: Reading Minds

The next morning, the kids left on their own to visit Jade, leaving Tom and Liz in the suite. On their way to Jade’s, they got a red flash on their Timeline display. Looking at each other in confusion, they stopped, and slowly turned in a circle. The displays flashed orange in the direction of Jade’s office, and green down a side hall. They followed the hall, remaining quiet, and came to a door marked “Data Libraries”. Their alerts flashed green, and they entered the room.

Jade was sitting in the room, and smiled at them. “Good work, kids. You were stealthy and very focused. You worked like a team, and avoided my artificial placetime problem.”

“I figured this was your doing,” joked Laura, as they sat down. They told Jade about their evening adventures, and Andy explained how he was healed after his BMX tumble.

“Excellent, I figured you would personally get a lot of value out of that ability, Andy”, said Jade. “Boys tend to use the healing abilities a little more often than the ladies.”

“So, are you ready to read minds?” asked Jade. The kids were very excited to begin.

“OK, I’m going to turn on Communication a bit at a time. First you’ll learn Data Access, and then you’ll learn how to send and receive to people. We’re doing it in this order so you don’t accidentally broadcast your thoughts to everyone until you’ve learned to control it.”

After a pause, she said, “Now you have Data Access. Turn on your Communication Enhancements.”

Jenna closed her eyes and thought, *ENHANCEMENT COMMUNICATION ON*. Immediately, a voice sent, %COMMUNICATION ON, RESTRICTED TO DATA MODE.%

Jenna sent, *What kind of data can I get?*

%YOU HAVE LEVEL 1 ACCESS TO FULL HISTORICAL, LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL RECORDS, AND FACILITIES CONTROL AT LEVEL 1. ADDITIONAL ACCESS WILL BE GRANTED AFTER PROFICIENCY IS DEMONSTRATED, AND CLEARANCE PROVIDED BY YOUR COACH.%

*You talk just like a person. What should I call you?*

%MOST PEOPLE CALL ME TC. CALL ME ANYTHING YOU WANT, JUST DON’T CALL ME LATE FOR DINNER.%

*Funny, TC, you sound like my Dad. So tell me about this place,* Jenna sent.

%THIS IS A SECURE TIME TRAVEL HUB COMMONLY KNOWN AS TIME CAMP ERA 47. IT IS LOCATED IN AN UNDOCUMENTED SPACE ON EARTH APPROXIMATELY 2.37 MILLION YEARS BEFORE ERA 47. IT HOUSES MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC LABORATORIES, HOUSING, RECREATION FACILITIES, HISTORICAL ARCHIVES, TRAINING FACILITIES, AND IT MAINTAINS AN ACTIVE STAFF OF OVER 700 PERMANENT PERSONNEL.%

Jenna said to Jade, “This is amazing. I’m thinking to the Time Camp! He goes by T.C.”

Jade replied, “Well, it’s not really the whole Time Camp. You’re thinking to a Data Supplier. They are here, at most TimeStations, and occasionally one will be provided when you are on assignment. Go ahead kids, and ask it some questions!”

Andy sent, *TC, where is the nearest bathroom?*

%STRAIGHT AHEAD 20 METERS THEN OFF TO THE LEFT. SHALL I GIVE YOU TURN DIRECTIONS, WISE GUY?%

Andy sent: *No, thanks. Just checking.*

Laura sent: *TC, are there any boys my age here at time camp?*

REPLY: %BY ‘YOUR AGE’ LAURA, I ASSUME YOU MEAN BOYS WITHIN 1 YEAR YOUNGER TO 2 YEARS OLDER. THERE ARE 5 BOYS YOUR AGE IN TIME CAMP AT THE CURRENT MOMENT. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IMAGES OF THEM?%

Laura sent: *I guess so.*

Immediately, five images appeared in her visual field, showing the faces and names of each of the five young men. %DO YOU WANT CURRENT LOCATIONS OF THESE PEOPLE?%

*Uh, no thanks, just browsing, TC!* sent Laura.

Jade said, “OK, now ask a specific historical question, and request a download.”

“Download?” asked Jenna.

“It will retrieve and store the information in your memory. You can access it by thinking about the event and you can sort through it any time,” explained Jade.

“Holy cow,” said Andy. He went first: *TC, tell me about the Alamo, and download*.

%SMALL MEDIUM OR LARGE CONTENT?%

*Large. Make me smart!*

%STARTING WITH SMALL. FULL KNOWLEDGE DOWNLOAD IN 2.5 MINUTES%

Immediately, he saw images and sounds and he ‘knew’ what went on at the Alamo. There was background data on the construction, the background on the key players, and a timeline of the battle. As he thought more about it, more and more information came to his mind, and he found he could recognize the names of everyone in every photograph. He also knew that no one had ever observed the action as a time team, as there was only historical data and no record of observer brain dumps.

At the same time, Laura sent: *TC, tell me about the Berlin Wall falling and download.*

%SMALL MEDIUM OR LARGE CONTENT?%

*Large, please.*

In school, Laura had studied the event and had some context around it. As the information streamed into her mind, she recognized images, and sounds. Then she recognized her parents from the image, and as she concentrated on their image, a link appeared %OBSERVATION AVAILABLE, VIEW?%

*Yes, view,* Laura sent to TC.

Immediately, she was there, in Berlin. Looking through her parents’ eyes, she watched as the sledgehammers and later bulldozers took down the wall. She could switch between views, and she could fully see and hear and even pick up on other senses and the exhilaration that her parents felt on their first solo trip. Thought their experience was hours long in the recording, she found that her playback only lasted seconds in the Time Camp world. Her brain could process the playback much faster than it originally occurred!

*TC, Terminate observation playback.* sent Laura. Immediately she was back in the lounge. Andy had moved from the Alamo to the Colorado Territory, where he caught up with Bobby and Jake’s brain dumps. He was reliving their experiences riding and observing in Denver City as it was the capitol of the Colorado Territory in the 1870’s.

Jenna had found the Rascal Flatts concert and knew that it had taken place on March 12, 2011 in Oklahoma City. She knew that she and her brother and sister and parents had done a full observation. As she re-lived the playback, she found that she could not only see it from each person’s eyes, including her own future eyes, but she could zoom out and fly around the center of the stadium.

Terminating her playback, she described her experience including the flyaround. Laura said, “I couldn’t do that in Mom and Dad’s Berlin Wall. How come?”

Jade replied, “It is called triangulation. When three or more observers record the same event, the brain dump system can create a full dimensional view. Since there will be five of you, there will be excellent fidelity in the final observation of that concert.”

The Watson kids practiced a bit more, and found that they could store and recall on demand, and they could find a lot of information about Time Camp and about history in general. But they wouldn’t get any information past the date that they left their home time for Time Camp. TC simply replied, %YOU AREN’T READY FOR THAT YET.%

After practice, Jade said, “Andy, you get to order lunch today. Get our orders verbally and then talk to the Camp.”

He asked everyone for their orders, and then sent *TC, I need to order lunch.*

%OK ANDY, WHAT DO YOU WANT?%

*We’ll have three hotdogs, three fries, four cokes, and one salad for Jade, she said you would know which one.*

%AHH, JADE’S SALAD. I HAVE YOUR ORDER. SHOULD WE DELIVER TO YOUR CURRENT LOCATION NOW?%

*Yes, thank you, TC.*

%ANYTIME, BUD,% said TC. Andy smiled.

An orderly came around the corner with a tray and set it down by them. “How in the heck can they do that so fast?” asked Andy?

Jade said, “Time delay. TC sends the order back in time to the kitchen, so there is time to make it before you call for it. Only in Time Camp!”

Chapter 25: Hear Me Think!

They all dug into their lunches and relaxed for a bit. After they finished, Jade said, “Are you ready to think to each other?”

“Ooh yeah!” said Laura.

“I’m going to enable just the four of us for now,” said Jade. Immediately, each of the kids felt/saw a tiny image of each other and Jade. “When you turn on your communications, you can be private or public. If you are private, people don’t see you as available, but they can try to send to you anyway. If you are public, then anyone in your area can see you as available, even if they can’t physically see you. Jenna, think something to Andy.”

Jenna concentrated on the Andy image and sent, *Andy, you need a haircut!*

Andy sent back, *No I don’t! I’m growing it long!*

Jade said, “Did you communicate?”

Andy replied, “Yeah, that’s pretty neat. Couldn’t you hear it?”

Jade sent to all three: *No, people can only hear thoughts directed at them. Right now I’m sending to all three of you, but I had to choose to do that. There’s complete privacy unless you choose to send to someone. Otherwise it would be constant noise in everyone’s head!*

Laura sent to all three: *I get it. If I wrap my thought around all of you, you all receive it.*

Then Laura sent to Jade: *Jade, this is just for you. Andy, did you get it?* Andy didn’t react. He and Jenna were thinking jokes to each other and laughing out loud.

Jade to Laura: *I got it, and Andy didn’t. You learn quickly!*

Jade to all three: *OK, here’s another trick. Andy, go back to your information download and send us some information on the Alamo.*

Andy concentrated for a minute, and then all three ladies started receiving images and information about the Alamo. Jade signaled, *If you want, you can download and record anything sent to you. We’ll get to that tomorrow.*

She followed up to all three, *Now we’re going to go out on a scavenger hunt and not speak to anyone. I’m opening up your channels to everyone, but please remember to not send to anyone that you don’t know – it’s not polite and you could disturb their concentration!*

Immediately, the kids’ awareness expanded and they could sense hundreds of others in the thought plane. It was a bit confusing at first, but they quickly learned to hide the images of the people they did not know. Jenna immediately recognized her parents and sent to both: *Mom, Dad! I see you! We can finally send! Where are you?*

Liz replied, sending to Jade and her whole family: *It’s great to see you all are learning your abilities so quickly! Your Dad and I are very proud of you! We’re busy now, but have fun and we’ll see you later.* Then Liz and Tom went off the air.

Jade sent: *If you tell your enhancement to go private, you will disappear from the thought plane, just like your parents. So now, we’re going to learn how to send and receive in sequence. Jenna, you need to ask TC for directions to the Assembly Hall, and relay the turns to Andy as we walk. Andy, you will relay them to Laura who will be in the lead. I’ll follow you all. Ready?*

All three sent: *Ready!*

Laura stepped to the front, followed by Andy, Jenna and finally Jade. Jenna sent: *TC, I need directions to the Assembly Hall from here.*

%HERE THEY COME, JENNA.% And shortly, Jenna knew how to get there. As each turn came up, she shot a quick thought to Andy, who relayed it to Laura. Laura was several steps ahead of them past the third turn, when she suddenly sent to all of them, *Freeze, Timeline alert!*

The whole gang stopped in place and as they heard footsteps ahead of them, their Timeline ability flared yellow, then orange. A few seconds later they all flashed green and Laura sent, *OK to proceed.*

Jade sent, *Good job, Laura. Quick thinking to send to all of us. I sent that decoy to see how you’d react as a team when you couldn’t talk. Let’s keep moving!*

Andy and Jenna smiled at each other. This was exciting stuff!

The Assembly Hall turned out to be right below the main departures hall. There were scores of people in the assembly hall, coming and going, and as they glanced around, the faces of the people matched with their identities in the thought plane and the kids found out about visual identification. They could concentrate on a person and their name and other information would be available to them. With all of the enhancement inputs, they had to focus their attention to stay on their mission.

They entered a lift and it dropped them and opened on another hallway below them with a grand auditorium that seated perhaps two thousand people. At the moment it was mostly empty.

Jade sent, *Mission Accomplished! Great job today Watsons! You have only one more ability to use and then we get to run more simulations.*

Andy sent to them, *This is great. Can we hit recreation again?*

*Sure thing. You may want to check out Hula Hoops, Twister, Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots and learn how to dance The Twist.*

The kids were puzzled by these suggestions. Laura did some sending to TC and replied, *These were all popular in the early 1960’s. Does this have something to do with our first trip?*

Jade said, *Excellent research, Laura! Yes, it does. I can’t tell you any more than this, but if you want to fit in with other kids on your trip, you’ll have to know what they do to have fun. Now get going!*

The kids decided to invent a game on their way there, to test their new skills. Andy sent to TC for directions, and he headed off on his own. Laura followed 5 minutes later, and Jenna followed her just a few minutes after that, each one taking only mental images sent from the one ahead of them. It was tough to separate what they were seeing on their own from what their sibling was sending them, but it was a fun adventure, and they learned one more way to communicate using their abilities!

Chapter 26: Record and Playback

The next morning, all five Watsons met up with Jade for the last part of the kids’ training. They all made a pact to not speak to each other and to practice their new thought skills, which were proving to be quite fun. To make it more challenging, Laura fashioned blindfolds from the dinner napkins and the other four followed her on a long and winding path through Time Camp to Jade’s, using only Laura’s transmitted images from her eyes. There were a few bumps along the way, but they were learning to work quietly as a team and share thoughts without anyone else being aware.

Once a Jade’s office, they sat and Jade sent, *Great approach, Watsons! Today you learn how to record, review and brain dump. This is the most important skill as an observer. It’s the reason the enhancements were developed, and the reason why the five of you are here.*

Jenna sent, *We’re all very excited and ready to learn!*

Jade sent, *To record, simply send ‘ENHANCEMENT RECORDING ON’. Everyone try it now.*

All five complied. As Jenna sent her command, a bar at the top and bottom of her field of vision began blinking blue. She looked around the room and took the view of a fairly normal looking family and a small lady smiling. She spent perhaps a minute looking around Jade’s office.

Jade sent, *OK, now turn it off.* As Jenna turned it off, the blinking stopped, and a message came to her: %RECORDING SAVED, 1:12.05 DURATION. THINK ‘RECORDING ARCHIVE’ TO ACCESS.%

Jenna sent *Access Recording Archive.* Immediately the above entry appeared as the only item in the list. She mentally selected it and a menu appeared: %PLAY, ERASE, BRAIN DUMP, OR GO BACK?%

She thought, *Play.* Her experience was reproduced almost exactly. She found that she could slow it down, rewind it or speed it up. The playback took only seconds to experience, even though it was over a minute long.

Jade sent, *Now, everyone please brain dump this recording with no breaks.*

Jenna paused the playback and selected, *Brain Dump.*

TC asked, %ENTIRE OR PARTIAL?%

She selected *Entire*, and within about 5 seconds, the message %BRAIN DUMP COMPLETE% was sent.

After all six on the team had completed their brain dump, they all received a message, %BRAIN DUMP TRIANGULATED. VIEW COMPOSITE?%

Jenna sent, *Yes* and a full feed played back for her. She could switch perspectives to each of the six participants including her own, and she found she could pull out of the eyeball view and fly her perspective around the room. *So THAT’s how it works!* sent Jenna to everyone. They all smiled as they realized that they had made their first Watson Family Recording!

Jade sent, *You will generally all record as a team, so you’ll want to synchronize your recording starts and stops through communications. For the best fidelity, you’ll want to be as separated as you can be but still be in sight of one another and your subjects. Don’t get so far apart that any one of you could be put in danger, especially the kids. The conversations you send to each other and any TC or other enhancement traffic is saved on a separate channel and will not generally be integrated into the main recording, but be aware that they will be captured in the recording unless you specifically start the recording with instructions to suppress all enhancement traffic. And remember, at least three of you in sight of each other will make it a full recording, and that rates a bonus!*

The rest of the day, the family participated in several simulations and drills, designed to get them to communicate with each other about recording, to deal with Timeline and Biological alerts, and to download and utilize archive information to set up for an observation. And interestingly enough, they had to practice talking to each other as they thought back and forth, so they would not stand out in a crowd through their silence!

That night, they were all quite weary from the hours of physical and mental training they had completed as a team. They were closer than they had ever been as a family, and their skills as observers were improving hour by hour.

They chose a simple meal, and, as they were a bit homesick, they summoned an old-fashioned two dimensional “Television” style playback of a recorded broadcast and enjoyed it with popcorn and root beer floats.

Chapter 27: Preparations

The next day they awoke to a sent thought: %WATSON FAMILY, REPORT IN 60 MINUTES TO WARDROBE 12.% This sent the family into a virtual fire drill, with everyone rushing to be dressed and clean and fed before their deadline. Andy sent for directions, and they nervously exited their suite as he led the family to Wardrobe. As they entered area 12, they were met by Jade and a man she introduced as Max. He was tall, dark-haired and in his early forties and dressed in a thin grey suit, and he was all business. Jade told them that he was a trip master, and their stomachs knotted with tension.

Max started, “Watsons, I’ve watched your parents’ first mission and your training with pride. You work very well as a team and I think you’re ready for your first assignment.”

“It’s a very historic event that has been observed before, and we have people all over the site. But you won’t know them and they won’t know you, unless you stumble into a red placetime. We’ll be watching your reactions and how you work as a team. Are you all ready for your first trip?”

They looked each other, and though nervous, they were confident and excited. They thought to each other privately for a moment, and Laura spoke for the family, “We are proud to be chosen and we’re ready for our first assignment.”

Max smiled, and said, “Great! Right now I want you to all access and download Briefing Watson5-001.”

Laura sent, *TC, please access and download Briefing Watson5-001.*

%HOW EXCITING LAURA, YOUR FIRST TRIP! HERE IT COMES.% replied TC, and her head was filled with information, image, sounds and lots of context around a historic event that made her belly flutter with excitement. “The JFK assassination? Why that event?” asked Laura. Even before the Briefing, she understood the impact of President Kennedy’s death on 20th Century history.

“Several reasons,” said Max. “First, it’s close to your home time, so you won’t have a lot of cultural adaptation. Second, though we have several first hand recordings, we don’t have a full definition triangulated copy. And third, like I mentioned, this one has a bit of a safety net as there will be other travelers there in case something should happen.”

“As you learned in your briefing, you’ll be witnessing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. It took place in Dealey Plaza in Dallas Texas at roughly 12:30 PM local time. There were over 30 cameras in that location, shooting film stills and moving pictures. You’ll particularly want to avoid being anywhere near the person or field of view of Abraham Zapruder, Orville Nix, Charles Bronson and Marie Muchmore, as they captured good footage of the actual shooting which was used extensively in the investigations that followed. The CIA from 1963 will have an abort team in the plaza, and Secret Service will be there as well, so don’t do anything to arouse suspicion. You’ll arrive a day early to acclimate and you will have good alibis in case you are questioned.”

“Here in Wardrobe 12, we’ll outfit you with clothing, identification documents, jewelry, toiletries and luggage appropriate to the era. Spend some time now reviewing the Dallas area layout in the briefing. You’ll be staying at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel. You’ll enter Dallas via TimeStation 3 on Thursday November 21, and will return via the same TimeStation on Saturday November 23. Regular taxi will move you to and from the station, which is in an office building near the city center. If asked, you will tell outsiders you came in on Pan Am flight 1101from Pittsburgh on Thursday morning.”

“Tom, your cover is as a fabric salesman who travels extensively. I’m sending your business background via TC. Liz, you are not employed, but you work with sick children in your local hospital. Your accents will place you as northerners. Tell people you are from Erie, PA. You live on 404 West 6th street. Gentlemen, you will wear watches and hats and suits when you are out. Ladies, it will be dresses, head scarves, hats and sunglasses whenever possible, but don’t overdo it. Your clothes are upper middle class, and you are staying at a nice hotel. I don’t want to be able to recognize any of you in any historical images. Is that clear?”

The Watson family all nodded in acknowledgment. This was getting serious!

Max continued, “I know this seems fast, but we have found that a first assignment right out of training and simulation is always best, and you won’t have time to stew on it. So as soon as you are dressed and packed, head up to departures and be off. Any questions?”

Tom responded, “No Max, we are as ready as we’ll ever be.”

“Then let’s go. Adrian, show the ladies to the dressing rooms. Tom, Andy, come with me.”

Chapter 28: Dallas, 1963

The family moved from Wardrobe 12 with their suitcases in hand and purses for the ladies. They had sufficient cash to address their needs and knew that they could signal for more if the situation demanded it. They knew which business to avoid and which to choose from, and they were briefed on the news of the day, including fads, music, culture and politics. They also had a full library of historical information documenting the lead-up and follow-up of the event. The boys got a lesson in hair cream, and the ladies’ hair was done up in a puffy beehive style, popular for that age, except for Jenna, who got a bob hairdo. Andy got a real chuckle seeing his sisters and mom in bouffant dresses and tall hair.

As they entered the departures area, they began to feel very nervous. Approaching a desk, they were interrupted by Jake and Clay Johnson, in casual clothing.

“Hey Watsons! Off on your first trip?” asked Clay.

“Yes we are,” said Laura. “We’re a bit nervous, but we’re ready!”

Jake chimed in, “It’s an incredible experience, you’ll see. Good luck, and stay out of the red!”

“Thanks,” said Jenna, as they reached the desk. The Johnson boys continued across the great hall.

Tom cleared his throat and said, “Hello Rachel. Please set us up for Dallas Timestation 3, November 21st, 1963, 1100 local.”

Rachel responded, “Dallas TimeStation 3, it will have to be 1115. There’s a lot of time traffic that day, and we need the separation. Please use booth 81. Return in +1?”

Tom confirmed, “Booth 81, return in +1. Have a Good Day.”

Booth 81 was quite close to the departures desk, and within a minute they were inside, the blue indicators showing their target Placetime. Then the opposite door opened to an inner office with a secretary who looked up and said, “Hello Watsons, we’ve been expecting you.”

They exchanged pleasantries with Mary, the operator in Dallas 3. She reviewed their itinerary and summoned a cab for them. *Keep your communication up whenever you can. You can contact us here if an emergency arises*, sent Mary to the entire family. *The other operatives will be muted, and you should be on family privacy at all times. Good Luck!*

*Thank You,* replied Liz and the rest of the Watsons, as they headed to the outer office.

Leaving the office building, they were refreshed by a warm breeze and a bright Texas morning. A cabbie jumped to the curb and lifted the ladies’ suitcases into the open trunk.

“Kinda strange you coming out of that office with suitcases and all,” said the cabbie. Tom smiled and said, “I’m here on business, and my family came with me from the airport. The hotel said the room wouldn’t be ready until noon.”

“Makes sense to me I guess. Where to, Mac?”

“Sheraton Dallas, my usual,” said Tom.

*Piling it on a bit thick, aren’t we dear?* sent Liz, with a smile.

*I’m supposed to be a confident and successful businessman. Got to act the part!*

The boys sat in front, and the ladies enjoyed the spacious back seat. The cab ride was maybe ten minutes, during which time the Watsons were glued to the windows.

Laura sent, *Look at these old cars! It’s amazing how huge they are!*

Jenna followed up, *Yeah, but look at the ‘groooovy’ skirts those ladies have. This is the edge of the fashion era. Pretty soon everyone will be in miniskirts and paisley prints.*

Andy said, ‘I can’t believe how plain and simple things look. No neon, no graffiti, no huge billboards or video displays. And I can’t stand these itchy suits!*

Liz sent, *Get used to them, bub. The sixties weren’t invented for your comfort.*

The cabbie rattled on about the president’s upcoming visit, and Tom made small talk as the kids and Liz observed and thought to each other. Tom had to remind them to talk occasionally, to keep the cabbie from thinking that they were up to something.

So Laura asked her mom, “Do you think Jackie will be wearing wool or linen tomorrow?”

Liz said, “With this warm weather, I expect it will be a cooler fabric than wool. Tom, what do you think?”

Tom caught on and replied, “Well, linen is preferable to wool in warmer climates. Mrs. Kennedy has been known to wear Chanel suits, you may know.”

“Say mister, do you think the Cowboys will do any better this year?” asked Andy to the cab driver. That was just what the cabbie needed to start his rant about the poorly performing four-year-old professional football team, and Andy and Tom followed the discussion with interest, having downloaded the Cowboy’s team history before leaving. Of course, the driver didn’t know that within three years, his maligned Cowboys would take over the NFL east and be ranked #1 or #2 for nearly all of the next 20 years.

Soon, the cab pulled up at the imposing Sheraton Dallas Hotel, and a bellman rushed out to take their bags to the desk. “Good afternoon, Mr. Watson. Glad to see you again. And with your family this time!” said the bellman.

Liz sent, *Now how in the blue blazes did you pull THAT off?*

Tom shrugged and sent, *Uh, I guess I come back after this is done and show up early a few times. Remind me to do that, OK?*

*Well, since it obviously happened, you must have done well.* replied Liz. She sent to the kids, who caught on to the later/earlier trick.

Tom paid and tipped the cabbie, and walked to the desk with Liz at his side to register.

The Sheraton Dallas Hotel was a large, imposing structure just off of Pearl Street. Constructed of concrete and glass, it was a grand place for 1963.

Check-in was uneventful, and they were assigned a suite on the 25th floor of the 28-story building, at the time, the tallest west of the Mississippi. The bellman chatted with them about their plans and highlighted various amenities available at the hotel.

The room itself was grand. With three bedrooms and an impressive view of the city, the kids were in awe of the view and the luxury of the place. “We have never stayed at a place like this up north,” said Andy.

“Well, enjoy it while you can, because we check out in two days, and they may be quite busy days, indeed. Shall we freshen up and take in a bit of shopping?” asked Tom.

“Yes!” shouted Laura and Jenna. Andy just rolled his eyes. He was already bored, and shopping would not help the matter.

They left the hotel and used their downloaded city maps to plot a walking path that would take them past many of the city’s finest stores. They knew they could take very little back with them, but a couple more items of clothing or jewelry would be added to Wardrobe 12 on their return.

Their stroll took them down Main Street, straight into a large Nieman-Marcus department store. There they shopped for items very similar to the styles they were wearing. Liz chose a plaid skirt and blazer, while Jenna and Laura both opted for lighter summer dresses with large buttons and belts. Andy and Tom settled for a new tie each, and a new cap for Andy. “Great, just what I wanted,” griped Andy.

After a light lunch in a bright streetside café, the family continued their shopping, and made small talk out loud as they sent private observations to each other.

Continuing their walk, they passed a magazine stand. “Hey Dad, can I buy a Sports Illustrated?” asked Andy.

“Sure, I don’t see why not,” said Tom. Andy chose his magazine and his dad paid in change. Andy was a happy young man!

Returning to the hotel in the late afternoon, they were walking through the lobby toward the elevators when their Timeline alert flashed bright orange. Immediately they stopped and turned and headed for the couches in the waiting area. *What can that be?* sent Jenna to the family.

*I don’t know, just stay low. Laura, pick up that magazine,* sent Tom. Out of the corner of his eye, amid the blinking yellow of the Timeline alert, he recognized one of the photographers that would take historic images tomorrow at the fateful event. *It’s Marie Muchmore! What would she be doing in this hotel? She lives right here in Dallas! Oh, she has a receipt, I think she delivered a dress to someone here. Geez, that was close!*

As Marie left the hotel, their Timeline alerts all went back to green, and after a moment to gather their wits, they took the elevator up to their room to drop their packages. Then, they headed up to the top floor where they had a quiet dinner at the exclusive Chaparral Club.

Later, the kids were restless after dinner. Laura, browsing through the hotel’s notebook, said, “Hey, there’s a kid’s recreation room on level 2. Can we go down?”

Liz and Tom thought for a moment, and Tom said, “Sure, as long as you are careful with your Timeline alerts. Come back up at 10PM please, or we’ll have to send to you.”

“OK, Dad!” said the kids as they raced for the door. Finally, some time with other kids!

Heading to the second floor, they found the recreation room. Accustomed to video arcades and sophisticated home video equipment, they were a bit disappointed with the single black and white television and a couple of game tables, but they brightened as they saw a half dozen other kids their age scattered throughout the room.

Laura, the most outgoing of the three, but still shy around boys, approached another young lady about her age. “Hello, I’m Laura,” she said to the young dark-haired girl wearing a plum colored dress.

“Hello, I’m Susan. Where are you from?”

“We’re from Erie, Pennsylvania. Those are my brother and sister. We’re here with my Dad and Mom. My dad’s a salesman, and he’s here this week so we came to see the President.”

Susan brightened, and said, “That’s neat! I’m here with my Dad and Mom too. We come here a lot, and we are thinking of going over to the parade route tomorrow.”

Laura’s TimeLine sense flashed yellow. She thought and said, “You should try for the start of the route. I hear it’s less crowded there.”

Susan said, “That makes sense. I’ll tell Daddy when I go back up.” Laura’s alert faded to green.

“So, who do you like better, Roy Orbison or Frankie Valley?” asked Susan, moving closer to Laura.

“Well, I’m more of a Beach Boys girl myself,” said Laura, and they launched into a great girl discussion about the handsome male entertainers of the year.

At the table games, Andy and Jenna sat at a table with a couple of boys. “Hi, I’m Tom and this is Dave,” said the smaller of the boys. “We’re both staying here, but we’re not brothers or anything.” Dave smiled but didn’t say much.

Andy replied, “I’m Andy and this is my twin sister Jenna.”

Tom said, “You are twins? You don’t look the same.”

Jenna said, somewhat shyly, “We are fraternal twins. We were born at the same time but we aren’t identical.” Dave was smiling at her, and she smiled back.

Tom said, “Hey Andy, want to play RockEm SockEm?”

Andy smiled and said “You betcha. I have a lot of practice on this game!”

As Andy and Tom squared off with the red and blue robots, Dave quietly asked, “Jenna, do you do puzzles?”

Jenna blushed, and replied, “I love puzzles! Would you do a jigsaw with me?”

Dave smiled, and they moved off to a card table and chose a medium-sized puzzle which they proceeded to dump, sort and start to work the edges, without speaking.

As the kids played with their new friends, the time passed and the chaperone gave a 10 minute notice. The Watson kids, having made new friends, regretted needing to leave them.

David finally asked Jenna, “Um, Jenna, do you think I could, um, maybe write you sometime?”

Jenna blushed and felt warm all over. She was falling for this young man! But she thought about it. She would never get the letter. It would arrive in Erie about the time her parents were born and no one would ever respond. She liked Dave, but she knew that she would never see him again, and if they ever met in real life, he’d be 50 years older than her once she was born.

She said, “Dave, we’re moving soon and I don’t know where. Why don’t you write your address down and I’ll send you a letter when we get back to Erie?”

Dave brightened and ran off to get a pencil and paper.

As Jenna took his address and said her goodbye to Dave, Andy and Tom, as well as Laura and Sue, were saying farewell to each other. Happy as they were to be with other kids, they were sad to know that they would never see them again.

On the ride back to their suite, they were quiet and reflected on their situation as observers in time. It was hard being a kid in a time machine!

Chapter 28: A Fallen Giant

Thursday dawned clear and warmer. The Watsons took breakfast in their room, and commented about the delay from ordering to delivery. They showered, dressed and mentally rehearsed their positions for the motorcade. Tom and Andy would be on Zapruder’s side of the street, about 50 meters upstream of the famous amateur filmmaker, and 200 meters from the Texas Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald would fire three deadly shots later that day. The ladies would be at the corner of Houston and Elm, with a clear view of both the president’s car and the windows of the Depository. They would be spread out but within eye contact of each other, and Laura and Jenna would be together. They would visually ID other cameras and stay clear of their field of view.

They agreed to start recording on Tom’s signal, once they entered their Taxi which would drop them near the parade route.

As their taxi arrived, Tom sent, *OK, gang, start recording.*

*ENHANCEMENT RECORDING ON.*

The blue light confirmed recording for Tom, and the family messaged back, *Recording*.

It was 11:45 AM. America was about to lose a leader.

“Market and Main, Driver,” said Tom. All during the cab ride, the family was churning with dread, but they knew they had to put on a pleasant face for anyone who would see them. They made small talk about the weather during the short ride from the hotel to their dropoff point.

12:00 PM. Leaving the cab, the family took a moment to hug each other. Each one sent, *I Love You!* to the others, and they broke up into two teams to get into position. The crowds were already starting to form, and they wanted to make sure that they had a clear line of sight.

12:10 PM. Tom and Andy stayed close as they kept an eye out for CIA, Secret Service, and most of all, photographers. They also knew that many people would head up the grassy knoll in search of the gunman, so they stayed clear of that area.

12:20 PM On the other side of Dealy Plaza, the ladies stayed together at first, and then Liz remained in one spot and the girls wandered a bit down the street to be in front of the president’s car when it passed. There were five people, ten eyes, and a perfect triangulation.

12:25 PM. *Five minutes, people. Kids, this is going to be pretty shocking. Brace yourselves,* sent Tom.

12:27 PM. The police motorcycles roared into the plaza. *I see movement in the Book Depository window!* Sent Liz. *Girls, don’t be overt about it, just move your heads like you’re looking all over.*

*I see it too,* sent Laura.*There’s people on two floors. A group on the fifth floor and one guy above them. That’s Oswald, right?* sent Laura.

*I think so. Jenna, you and I keep eyes on the shooter. Laura, you and the boys watch the motorcade.* sent Liz.

12:29 PM. The president’s 1961 Lincoln Convertible Limo came around the corner with the President and First Lady in the back and Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nelly in the front. The president caught Andy’s eye and raised his hand in a small wave. Andy’s eyes flashed red. Then the President lurched forward and a strange look came into his eyes. Jacqueline turned to him and the Governor turned to face back and then as he turned to front, he was hit from behind as well. Andy and Tom could hear the Governor scream, "Oh, no, no, no. My God. They're going to kill us all!"

And then the president’s head exploded from the third shot.

As Jenna and Liz watched the killer methodically fire round after round from the Depository window, Tom, Andy and Laura all saw the president’s death play out in front of them. Laura screamed and wanted to cover her eyes. Andy was nearly sick, but his biological ability quickly suppressed the nausea. Tom could only watch helplessly as Jacqueline cradled her dead husband’s body and the Secret Service piled onto them both. Within seconds, the limo raced away toward Parkland Memorial Hospital.

But the President was already dead, and there was nothing anyone could have done to stop it.

Except for five people in the crowd who knew exactly what was going to happen and when, and they didn’t do a thing about it.

Chapter 29: Aftermath

The Watsons didn’t have to do a lot of acting over the next couple of hours. As stunned and shocked as the rest of the crowd, they found each other and stood and watched as people reacted. They saw the Deputy Sheriff kicking the grass, saying “Oh, Damn, Oh Damn”. They watched as people joined in a manhunt over the grassy knoll. They saw police talking to someone who saw something at the Book Depository, and they witnessed the beginnings of the investigation that would eventually lead to Oswald’s capture and subsequent murder by Jack Ruby. And they knew that Lyndon Johnson was just sworn in as the new President, the Secretary of State was returning to US soil from an aborted trip to Japan, and the nation was about to mourn the death of a great leader. The world was about to change, and the Watsons were the cameras from the future, witnessing it all.

As the shock penetrated the nation’s psyche, the excitement at Dealy Plaza gradually waned. As the area cleared, the family decided to walk back to the hotel in silence. No one even sent thoughts to each other. Finally, as they approached the Sheraton, Tom sent, *Recorders off, team.*

Back in the hotel room, the kids broke down. Andy said between tears, “He saw me. He waved to me. I flashed red, and then he was shot.”

Laura said, “I didn’t realize it was so violent. So brutal. It was unreal…”

Jenna sobbed, “We could have stopped it. We could have run into the street and stopped it.”

Liz said to them, “Now listen to me. You couldn’t have stopped it. Do you know what happens to observers who step into a red placetime? An agent comes in before you did it and stops you. They prevent you from doing it. And then you’re done forever as an observer. So it would have been impossible for any of us to actually change that event. Please don’t feel responsible for today. We were here as cameramen and women, not as a superheroes. And remember what they told us at Time Camp: To change the past, we may destroy all of the future, including us and the entire Guild.”

It was a long night, filled with nightmares and tears. But as they arose on the 23rd of November, the pain and shock was starting to fade a little, and they had at least a small sense of hope that they would recover and move on.

They chose to have their last breakfast in 1963 among other people. They ate in the lobby café, where they struck up a conversation with another family from out of town. The small talk helped root them in the moment, the year, and it cemented their position as a family of observers.

Checkout was short and sweet. Another cab ride took them to the office where TimeStation 3 was housed. Mary was once again there, and she knew to handle them carefully, following their stressful first mission. *You are all amazing,* she sent. *I could never do what you do. And you don’t know how valuable your recordings will become over the centuries.*

*Thank you Mary. We hope to see you again under better circumstances. Look us up if you ever see us active at Time Camp*

*I’ll do that. Save travels, Watson family*

And with that, they returned to Time Camp, at +1 minute from their departure.

They headed straight for Brain Dump upon arrival, and then they met Jade. She saw they were in pain, and spent some private time with each one, talking them through their stress and guilt. After everyone had spent some time reflecting and talking with Jade, Max came in to meet them.

*Tom, Liz, Laura, Andy and Jenna. You did a wonderful job on your first assignment. The recording is spectacular, and your decision to cover both the shooter and the President was brilliant. Your reactions were natural and incredibly deep. I know this hurt you and it will take some time to heal. So please relax for as long as you need, and let me know when you are ready to talk again.*

They spent nearly two weeks recovering. Some of it was in the recreation area, and other time was spent reliving their recording, studying more about the event and its impact on America and the world. But much of their time was spent together, just being a family. Midway through the second week, Tom snuck off briefly, and went back to October 1963 and planted the seeds of familiarity at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel by checking in and out several times over the course of a month. He became a regular at TimeStation 3, where they used the booth to bounce him around 1963 to establish his alibi as a fabric salesman. He returned to his family a minute later.

Finally, their recovery nearly complete, the family became restless and they decided to contact Max.

He met them in an open courtyard in one of the recreation gardens, surrounded by flowers and carefully manicured bushes.

“You look one hundred percent better, Watsons,” said Max.

“We feel that much better, thank you for allowing us time to recover,” said Liz, and the kids and Tom agreed.

“Well, before you go back to your home time, I have one more assignment for you.”

The kids immediately got a bad feeling, and began to complain. “After all of that, another mission?”

“Before you get all upset, let me tell you where and when. Where: Oklahoma City. When: March 12, 2011. And you’re going to be recording…”

“Rascal Flatts!” shouted Jenna, who jumped up and gave Max a big hug. This was one assignment that they would gladly accept!

END OF EPISODE 1.

About the Author

John Huegel is a professional photographer and author living in Erie, Pennsylvania, USA. He specializes in portraiture, including weddings, seniors, families and dance studio work. His photography website is at http://jhphotomusic.com.

John is an active member of several professional organizations and photographer gathering places. He is an ebook and article author, blogger, and offers training and consulting for amateur and professional photographers. His dedicated site for aspiring and new professional photographers is at http://johnhuegel.com.

John is the father of two daughters, a former “Dance Dad”, runner, heart attack survivor, musician and a certified Six Sigma Black Belt.

To explore the Time Camp Universe, and to offer feedback on this book, check out our Time Camp blog at http://timecamp.blogspot.com.

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