Seven identical rooms later and there were eight people sleeping things off.  They had also gathered a crowd of five more like Pickard.  The Princess had pronounced everything she saw junk, and she assured everyone that the only things they might get out of their work was things that would be discovered in the next three to six years anyway, including the laser.

            “But isn’t that exciting?  An actual working light accelerator.”  At least Pickard was excited.  The Princess smiled for him, but as she tried to hustle that whole crowd back to the quarantine room, she was not surprised to see several gunmen guarding the door.  She backed everyone up to the laser room before they were seen and took a second, longer look at that piece of equipment.  It was a simple laser reader, like for a disc or some such thing, but it could be adapted in the right pair of hands.

            “Quiet.”  Goldman, David and Nancy kept whispering to the others, but these were men of science, not special forces operatives.  They had questions, and the Princess simply could not answer them all, in part because she herself might risk endangering the future if she said too much.

            “Hold it!”  That was a bit loud, but the room quieted for a second.  “I promise I will show you all something, but first you have to promise that you will not make a sound no matter what.”

            “OK.  Fine.  Sure.”  They were not even quiet in saying that. 

            “Now I mean it.”  The Princess reduced her own voice to a sharp whisper.  “I am going to change and I don’t want to hear one peep out of any of you.”

            The men all nodded, two leered, but as the Princess looked at her special friends.  David, Nancy and Goldman knew what she was talking about.  The others had no idea.  When the Princess vanished and Martok, the Bospori came to be in her place, three men had their mouths covered by other hands, Pickard had his own hand over his own mouth, but of the two uncovered mouths, one man shrieked, and it was rather loud.  Everyone stood still.  There was a knock on the door.

            “Professor Braun, everything OK in there?”

            David grabbed the man and shoved him toward the door, whispering.  “Yes, yes.  My hand just slipped with the screwdriver.”  He wrapped Doctor Mishka’s handkerchief around Professor Braun’s hand.  The men in the room quickly ducked down behind the table and equipment while Braun cracked the door.  Braun looked back once, but David, who was standing behind the door, nodded to encourage him.

            “Yes, yes.”  Braun said.  “My hand just slipped with the screwdriver.”  He said the line like a hack actor, but then he grinned and held up his hand wrapped with the handkerchief.  There was a long pause before everyone heard the voice again. 

            “OK.  Just be careful.”

            “Oh, I will, I will.”  Braun said and he smiled and shut the door.

            They waited until they were sure the man had moved on.  Martok worked the whole time, piecing several alien and human bits of equipment together and attaching it to the laser array.  He had Pickard, Braun and several others looking over his shoulder by the time he was finished.  “Don’t go on the stage.”  Martok suggested to Braun at last.  “Your acting stinks.”  He turned with a smile, but there was no disguising the deep alien tone and tenor of Martok’s Bospori voice, even in a whisper, and then his eyes were also yellow and cat-like, or perhaps snake-like.  Braun almost let out another shriek, but this time he bit down on his own hand, hard – the one wrapped in the handkerchief and a few drops of blood appeared on the white linen.

            “What will it do?”  One man on the other side of the lab table, one who had not gotten a glimpse of those eyes asked.

            “Nothing yet.  I need a power source.  This equipment is all dead.”

            People started looking around the room.  One person picked up a Bunsen burner while another pointed to the wall outlets.  Braun said, “Mmmph” through his hand and handkerchief and went to a cabinet where he pulled out fifty feet of heavy-duty outdoor extension cord.

            “Good.”  Martok immediately cut the end and hot-wired the cord to his contraption.

            “One-ten or two-twenty?” A man asked.

            “One-ten will do,”  Martok said, and he nodded when he was ready.

            “But what will it do?”  The same man asked the same question.

            “Watch.”  Martok said and he lifted the contraption and pointed it at the wall, only to lower it again before switching it on.  “Any fire extinguishers in this room?”

            One of the men grabbed one off the wall, and Braun took a small one out of a drawer while everyone backed up a giant step.  They had been crowding the place where he was pointing the laser.  Martok lifted it again, but paused and lowered it a second time as he spoke.

            “You realize, I did not have time to check every circuit.  I hope this thing doesn’t blow up, funny as that might be.” 

            Everyone took another giant step back, or two and Martok whipped the laser up and immediately began cutting a hole in the wall.  “Better than a blow torch.”  He quipped as the wallboard proved no match for the laser.  Unfortunatly, there was an old plaster wall under the wallboard and that took a little longer to cut, but not much.  Martok was a bit afraid that the laser might be scorching the next wall over, but he knew they were three rooms from the quarantined room and he knew it would not go that far.  In all it did not take more than a minute  and Martok switched off his toy.  He handed it to Nancy who took it in her shaking hands like the ultimate hot potato.  She dared not move a muscle, while he stepped forward to examine his handiwork.  Martok was from the Bospori world, a planet with a heavier gravity than Earth.  He was short, only standing about five feet tall, but he was more dense that a human and on Earth, he was about as strong as a gorilla.  In this case, though, all he had to do was tap the wall section and it fell away.  It made a great racket in the process.

            “We need to move fast.”  Goldman stated the obvious while the man with the big fire extinguisher sprayed the edges of the opening to cool them off so people could go through.  Martok went first and noticed that the second wall was indeed scorched.  Others ran to the door to lock it in case those outside were inclined to check out the noise.  Martok found something in that room to enhance the power of the laser and it took a few seconds to work it into his contraption, but he reduced the range of the laser and went right back at it.  The second wall came down faster than the first. 

            David ran back to the first room and pulled the plug as they had reached the end of their tether.  “I hope you haven’t cut through the power lines.”  He said as he plugged it into their current room.  Meanwhile, Martok was studying the next wall and using his sensitive hearing to listen in.  When he was sure he turned to everyone in the room.

            “Gentlemen.  Nancy.  They have invaded the next room so we have to be prepared for a firefight.”

            “My room?”  Pickard asked, knowing full well whose room it was.

            “I hope we don’t damage anything vital, but we have to go through that room to reach the quarantined room.  I will be cutting a little higher than normal in case Rupert is still slumped against the wall.”  He paused and found one of the scientists who had served in the Navy and knew something about firearms.  That man got David’s gun, over David’s objection, and he and Goldman each took a side of the lab table to give them some cover.  He made everyone else go back into the last room and promise not to stick their heads into the opening in the wall.  “You would be no more than rabbits in a shooting gallery, so please keep your heads down.”  Then he turned the laser up to full power with the hope that he might cut through the wall to Pickard’s room and the wall to the quarantined room at the same time.

            Martok called to the Traveler’s helmet–a Greek looking helmet with a face plate that left two eye openings.  It appeared like magic and covered his whole head, and he pulled the hood of his cloak over the helmet as well, causing it to come together over his mouth and nose like he would if he was in the desert or caught by a sudden snowstorm.  He put goggles overall, but there was not much he could do about his eyes since he needed to see what he was doing but in that way he was as protected as possible from any bullets that might come in his direction.

            He touched the on switch and there was a brilliant flash of light which flared once and went out.  Martok let out a few words in his alien tongue and banged his makeshift laser on the lab table.  Immediately, it flared up again, and this time, with the enhancements, it made very short work of the wall.  It also started the wall on fire in several small places and that was going to be a problem if they could not get to it quickly.

          “Ready?”  Martok asked his gunmen, but he did not wait for an answer.  He picked up an engine casing which was too heavy for a human to lift and chucked it at the wall.  It exploded the wall and caused the three men in that room to jump back.  Goldman got off the first shot and miraculously caught one of the men in the shoulder despite all of the rubble flying through the air.  Then one of the men returned fire, and the navy man realized it was his turn.  He did not hit anything, but then the bullets flew.  Martok ignored it all.  He had picked up another smaller, but more solid piece of equipment, one about the size of an oversized softball and he threw it as hard as he could for the far wall while he prayed that the laser had cut that far.

             “Come.”  The Princess said as she cracked the door to check the hallway.  She had to step over to grab Nancy by the hand, but as soon as they were out the door, David and Goldman followed.  “I’m not allowed out of the school without my teacher.”  The Princess teased as she kicked open the door to the emergency stairwell and climbed to the third floor.  She stopped there and turned to David.

            “Glen?”  David asked.

            “Still me.”  The Princess responded.

            “Princess.”  Goldman identified her.  He was huffing and puffing a bit.

            “Out of shape.”  The Princess slapped him in the stomach with the back of her hand, but not hard, and she smiled.

            “No one is in your shape.”  He responded and turned to David and Nancy.  “She works out most of the time, and with those weapons, too, but hunting and tracking and sneaking around buildings are her specialties.”

            “Hush.”  The Princess quieted him.  “Which way, David?”  She asked in a whisper.

            David had to think for a minute before he pointed.  They were by chance on the right floor, but they had some hallways to navigate.  The Princess went first in that armor of hers to sniff out the way.  She kept Nancy close at hand but behind her as much as possible, just in case.  David had picked up a gun from the floor and Goldman had his out of his holster and in his hand, but both men hoped they would not have to use them. 

            By chance or good fortune, the halls were empty and they quickly reached the laboratory rooms they were searching for.  The Princess was ready to enter the first door she found, but David pulled them along to the second door.  He pointed at the first and said, “Quarantined.”

            “The pox room,” the Princess said, and David slapped himself in the head for not realizing that sooner, and that slap was a very dangerous thing to do with a gun in his hand.

            “Pickard.”  David called as they entered the second room down the hall.  The man who was sitting on a high stool against a lab table that might have come out of any High School science room, looked up.  There were chalkboards on the wall, and the start of an equation on one, and file cabinets against one wall with some other chairs and a few end tables.  There was also a second man at the lab table in the midst of his own project, and every open space, including a good bit of the floor was covered with equipment of one kind or another.

            “David.”  The man, Pickard recognized his friend.

            “Check him.”  The Princess turned to Goldman who raised his gun and walked to where the two men were staring at him with unbelieving eyes.

            “Put your head down and hold still.”  Goldman said.  Pickard looked at his friend, but David assured him.

            “Just do it.  Everything will be alright.  Rupert, you are next.”

            Pickard complied while Goldman and Nancy examined the back of his neck and checked through his bushy brown hair.  Rupert ran for the door.  He did not get far.  The Princess’ long knife shot across the room and pinned the man’s lab coat and probably his shirt sleeve as well to the chalkboard with the equation.  Rupert looked like a pinned butterfly as David and Goldman ran to hold the man.  David actually had to hold him which was not too hard since David was young and Rupert was old.  Goldman had to look hard to find the thing.

            “He’s clean as far as I can tell.”  Nancy said of Pickard.

            “Got it.”  Goldman announced at about the same time, and as he separated the little thing from Rupert’s neck, Rupert collapsed into unconsciousness.  The Princess raised her hand and her knife vacated the chalkboard like it had a will of its own and sprang back to her hand.  As soon as she put it away, she traded places once again with Doctor Mishka so she could examine the man on the floor.  Rupert was out cold, but the Doctor saw no sign of serious trauma or permanent damage.  It almost appeared as if he was asleep, and she wondered if he had slept since receiving his little brain modifier.

            “He should be alright after a while.”  She said, and thought, I hope; but she did not say that part out loud.  Instead, she went away again and let the Princess return.

            “Look.  What is this all about?”  Pickard started to ask, but paused as the Princess began to examine the things on the table. 

            “A piece of the engine, useless in itself and no great technological wonder.  Navigation system with everything of real value removed.  Broken weapons array, but these are just fancy switches.  Junk, junk, junk.  Who said you would get anything out of this?”

            David and Pickard looked at each other.  David spoke.  “The Director was very excited that first day and said there was no telling what we might discover.”

            “You know what these things are?”  Pickard was amazed.  He saw the Princess in her armor, which was an unusual enough sight; and he just saw her change to the Doctor and change back again to the Princess, though most likely his eyes just glossed over that sight because his mind told him people did not do such things; but as for her to know what some of this alien equipment was; now, that was impressive.

            “We clear the hall and then head for the Quarantine room.”  The Princess looked at the others.  It was a question but it came out like a statement.

            “Sounds like a plan.”  Goldman said.

            “I’m in.”  David said, though the Princess feared the man might shoot himself in the foot if he ever used that gun.

            “Can I come?”  Pickard did not want to be left out.

            The Princess looked at Nancy, but Nancy looked surprised.  “Me?  I’m not letting Glen out of my sight.”  It was settled.

            The security guard was pleasant enough.  “Morning Doctor Shakowski.  Missus.”  He even touched his hat before looking hard into the back seat.  “No visitors.  I’m sorry Mam, you won’t be allowed in.”

            “She is with the government people.”  David began to lie, but Mishka interrupted and handed forward a slim billfold such as the FBI sometimes carry.  It had some kind of I. D. in it, one that even had a picture attached.  The picture was of Mishka a bit older, but who can really tell with such pictures.  Mishka, accent and all, said flatly that she worked for the National Security Administration and she reported directly to the President. 

            “I am here to investigate yesterday’s incident.”

            “Yes mam, er, Colonel.”  The security guard appeared impressed with her and her credentials as well as the fact that she knew about the incident.  Of course, there were local police and firemen all over the place yesterday, but somehow the security guard had the idea that the incident was a secret like so much else at the Labs.  He handed back Mishka’s billfold and waved them through.

            “National Security Administration?”  David asked as soon as they were clear.

            “Agency I think in this country.  I have a long history of working with the Men in Black.”  David and Nancy did not know what that was, but Teacher Nancy had another question.

            “Colonel?”

            “Soviet, but it was just window dressing for the war.”

            “The First World War?”  David asked as he parked.

            “No, Second,” Mishka answered.  “The one where I was at Stalingrad.”  And she smiled and asked her own question.  “Shakowski?”

            “Polish,” David said.  Mishka started to say something in a foreign language, undoubtedly Polish, but David shook his head.  “Fourth generation,” he said.

            The security at the front door was much less accommodating than the man at the gate.  One guard took Doctor Mishka’s credentials and stepped behind a desk to make a call while the other blocked the way.

            “What is the problem?”  Nancy asked David, and quietly, but the guard in front of them answered her all the same.

            “Someone from the NSA already showed up this morning,” he said, and with that, the guard at the desk hung up his phone and three men in suits, two gray and one black, approached the front door.  David knew the two in gray suits.  They were internal security and government men.  Mishka knew the other.

            “Goldman!”  Mishka ran to hug the man.  He looked surprised, like he was being hugged by a complete stranger before something triggered in his mind.

            “Doctor?  Mishka?”  He backed up a little to look at her.  She was nodding.  “But you are so young, and pretty if I can say that.”

            Mishka grinned and took the man’s arm.  “You can always say that, but I do get around in time, you know, or did you forget.”

            “But how did you get, you know, younger?”  He paused and looked pale for a minute.  “I heard you died.”

            “Ah!”  Mishka had to decide what was safe to say before she spoke.  “After I died, Lady Alice revived me, I regenerated, and got to go into cold storage until needed.”  To Goldman’s curious look, she added, “I believe the current science fiction name is suspended animation.”  That helped a little.  “David.  Nancy.  This is Goldman, one of the men in black I was telling you about.”  She made the introduction and without a breath she asked Goldman, “Is young Jax around?”  Then she added one more thing before breathing.  “Goldman saved Churchill’s life in the Second war, just to be sure which war we are talking about.”

            “Hold it,” Goldman said as he finished shaking Nancy’s hand.  “I helped, maybe a little.”

            “Mam.”  The guard at the front door returned Mishka’s identification papers.

            “These gentlemen were just taking me to Doctor Thompson’s office when you arrived.”  Goldman continued.

            “Good idea.  Start with the director.”  David nodded, and the two men in suits turned without a word and began to lead the way.  Mishka, still holding the man’s arm, turned Goldman and followed while David and Nancy brought up the rear.  When they arrived at the director’s office and went straight inside, Mishka was asking another question.

            “How about Mister Smith.  Is he around?”

            Goldman shook his head.  “It is borderline since the Reichgo have visitation rights in the treaty.  Ultimately, that is for the Kargill to decide.”

            The door closed.  The director was behind the desk and looked up, his face covered in a deep, red rash, and he said, simply, “Hold them.”  The two men in gray suits pulled their guns.

            Someone else stepped into Mishka’s eyes, so to speak, to take in the scene and make a quick assessment.  Then Mishka was no longer standing there, but Diogenes, dressed in armor and weapons spun, and caught the hand of the man nearest to him.  He turned that hand just so in order for the bullet to enter his comrade’s middle.  That comrade also fired, but his bullet hit Diogenes in the shoulder and bounced off the armor, leaving only a bruise.  As Goldman made certain of the man on the floor, Diogenes let his hands work over the man beside him.  It was short work, and the man quickly slumped to the floor, not likely to rise for some time. 

            David and Nancy were staring when Diogenes turned and flashed his awesome smile in their direction.  He shrugged and went away, letting Doctor Mishka return to Glen’s time and place.  Mishka kept the armor, though, and David and Nancy watched it adjust automatically to this new shape and size.  Doctor Mishka was a couple of inches shorter at a bit over five foot, eight, and she certainly had a different shape, but no one would know the armor was not made for her. 

            “We need an ambulance here.”  Goldman said from the floor.

            “Wait.  Don’t touch him.”  Mishka ordered, and while everyone thought at first that she was talking about the man on the floor, she had noticed that the Director had gotten up.  He was sweating from fever, and the rash was more extensive on his face than anyone had ever seen.  He was staggered around the desk, holding on to keep from falling, and he did not look happy.

            Everyone backed up when they realized what was happening, but when Mishka returned, she returned with her black bag and she opened it.  The Director just let go of the desk to stand before her as she pulled a spray bottle from the bag and sprayed it inches from the Director’s face.  The man paused.  Doctor Mishka sprayed a second time.  With the third spray, the man went completely limp and collapsed to the floor like a rag doll.

            Mishka turned quickly.  “David.  Please phone for an ambulance.  Don’t tell them what happened, just say an ambulance is needed stat – immediately.”

            “Right.”  David started for the phone, but paused when Doctor Mishka handed him an old fashioned handkerchief. 

            “Contact is the way this appears to spread, and even immunized it is better to be safe.”  Mishka was staring at the Director.  His case was worse than she had seen, and she was revising her estimates as to how virulent the disease might be in humans.

            “Doctor.”  Goldman spoke from the floor where he and Nancy were kneeling beside the unconscious man.  They had turned him over and Goldman was holding something in a pair of tweezers.  “It came from the back of the neck, just under the hairline.”  He said as Mishka reached into her black bag and pulled out what looked like an old fashioned magnifying glass such as Sherlock Holmes might carry.  Teacher Nancy was not surprised when Mishka touched something and the lens on the glass illuminated with a small, white light.  She was surprised when Mishka twisted the handle and examined the little thing.

            “Very sophisticated.  I would guess it was designed to interfere with brain functions, maybe sending continuous signals that would be near impossible to resist.  I can see to the viral level with the glass, but I see no sign of infection which may be why these two men were not broken out with the pox.”

            “Viral?”  Nancy widened her eyes.  “That would be very small.”

            “Da.”  Mishka said, and she put the magnifying glass and the little thing into her black bag.

            “Medical team on the way.”  David said as he hung up the phone.

            “Now we must move.”  Mishka said as she vanished and the Princess came to stand in her place.  The Princess smiled for everyone and again they saw that the armor had adjusted to a woman that was an inch or so shorter and a figure that was near perfection.  To be sure, Doctor Mishka was very pretty, what some might even call beautiful; but she was not the Princess.

            The following morning, a Friday morning in October, Glen arrived at school to find Mister David and Teacher Nancy waiting for him.  The Teacher had gotten what she called a substitute to cover the class while she paced and looked terribly nervous.  It was as if she was thinking that maybe what they were contemplating and what she agreed to was not such a good idea after all.  David kept reassuring her that everything would be alright, but that just made her more nervous.  When Glen came into the nursery building, they took him straight into the office and he did not object, almost like he expected as much.  Once the door was shut, Teacher Nancy squatted down and gave Glen a big teacher hug which they could still do in those days.  When she backed up a little, without letting go of Glen’s shoulders, she spoke gently.

            “Glen.  We need your help.  We just need to ask some questions, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”  Teacher Nancy wanted to make that perfectly clear.

            Glen looked at his teacher and then up at Mister David and nodded, but then what he said surprised them.  “We need to go to the Labs.”

            “What?”  Teacher Nancy looked up at David, but he just smiled.  She looked again at Glen.  “Are you sure?  You don’t have to go anywhere.”

            “It’s Okay,” Glen said.  “I talked with my Doctor Mishka last night and she said she would go for me.”  That threw them.  Neither knew what he was talking about or how to respond, so he kept talking.  “She says right now we have to go outside to get away from people.”  He walked to the door and wrapped his little hand around the doorknob to give it a turn.  Teacher Nancy and David were slow to react, but caught up quickly enough, and Teacher Nancy took Glen’s hand as they walked out.  She wanted it to look as normal as possible in order to avoid too many questions from the staff or the other children.  Once outside, Teacher Nancy stopped and stopped Glen as well.

            “We are outside.  Now what are we doing?” 

            Glen shook his head and dragged them toward David’s Hudson and as far from the school as possible.  Then he stopped and looked up at them, first taking in one face and then the other.  He held out his two hands and Teacher Nancy was quick to take them both, but Glen pulled one hand free and David reached over and wrapped his big hand around that little paw. 

            “Doctor Mishka says you have to promise,” Glen said.

            “Promise what, dear?”  Teacher Nancy asked.

            “Don’t let go, no matter what.”

            “Oh, Glen.  I won’t let you go.”  Teacher Nancy squeezed his hand and smiled down at him with as much smile as she could muster.

            “Promise,” Glen said.

            “I Promise,” David responded without hesitation.

            Teacher Nancy looked at David and then back at Glen before she spoke again with a more serious expression and without the smile.  “I Promise,” she said, and Glen closed his eyes.  It only took a second before Teacher Nancy let go and threw her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.  David was still holding on, but it looked like he was shocked motionless.  Glen had vanished utterly from that place and a gull grown young woman with Glen’s hair color and Glen’s same blue eyes appeared in his place.  This woman was dressed in a full length Victorian style dress and it leant some credence to what followed. 

            “Doctor Nadia Illiana Kolchenkov.”  The woman introduced herself as she switched David’s hand from her left hand to her right so she could shake it properly.  “I am sorry.  I am Russian, but I died in 1953 if that helps any.”  She said that because she knew her English always came with a bit of a slavic accent.  She paused, put a black doctor’s bag up on the hood of the car, and began to rummage through it, and since neither David nor Nancy appeared inclined to say anything at the moment, she continued speaking.  “My friends all call me Mishka.  You must call me Mishka, also.  There, I hope I have everything I am going to need.”  She closed up her doctor’s bag. “Now you had better get in the car before you do anything rash.  I will explain on the way.  Shall I drive?”  She said that with a smile, but her hand reached for the back door handle.  That question shook the other two out of their shock long enough to move.  They got into the car almost without thinking about what they were doing.

            “Quite right,” Mishka added a thought.  “Glen is much too young to drive.”  She grinned at her own joke.

            “What happened to Glen?”  It was Teacher Nancy’s first words once the doors were shut.   There was some panic in her voice.  David backed up to the end of the drive but stopped.

            “Alright, but the quick version,” Mishka said.  “Glen has lived any number of lifetimes and I am his most recent previous life.  I was born in St. Petersburg in 1889.  I saw my city become Leningrad, but then I died in the Gulag.”  The woman paused before she spoke again.   “Curious, to remember your own death.  I suppose it is only because from this vantage point it all happened in the past.  Anyway, there are other lifetimes Glen has lived, so don’t be surprised if I call on one of them at some point.”

            “Has he – has he, Glen, you – have you, Mishka, done this before?”  David asked as he began to pull out very slowly into the road.

            “Glen?  No.  This is very unusual circumstances.  Usually I don’t do this until I am older, but in this case, don’t you smell it?  It smells like chickenpox or maybe smallpox everywhere, and there is like a darkness all over the neighborhood.  Glen, young as he is, sensed it coming from the building, what you call the Labs.”

            “Bell Labs,” David confirmed with a nod.

            “Da-yes.  Little children are sometimes very sensitive to such things.”  Mishka took in Teacher Nancy’s eyes.  The teacher was turned completely around in the front seat and was staring at her.  “Don’t worry.  Glen will come home once this is settled, only keep in mind, he probably will not remember any of this, so it would be best if you did not discuss it in his presence.”

            Teacher Nancy broke eye contact and shook herself like a person waking from a dream.  “But what is it?”  She paused briefly to get her bearings.  “I have to admit that I have been feeling edgy for a week, like I was sensing something, but I thought it was just – you know.”

            “Women stuff?”  Mishka laughed.  “No Teacher Nancy, and you can trust me.  I am a doctor.”

            “Doctor?”

            “University of Paris.  A surgeon, actually, but I got my first real experience on the Russian Front in the World War.”

            “Really?”  David perked up a little.  “Were you at Stalingrad?”

            “Yes, but I was referring to the First World War.”

            “Oh.”  David swallowed.  “Of course.”

            “Wait.  We are getting off subject.”  Teacher Nancy got David to drive to the side of the road before they went up to the gate.  “So what is this we are dealing with?”

            “Yes,” David said, and he actually turned off the car so he could turn around in his seat as well.  “Glen said the word Reichgo and I thought nothing of it until yesterday when I overheard two of the government men use the word.”

            “What is a Reichgo?”  Teacher Nancy asked.

            “Who.”  David and Doctor Mishka spoke together, and David quieted so the Doctor could speak.

            “Extraterrestrials.”  She began to explain, but she changed her description when she saw that Teacher Nancy did not know the word.  “Space Aliens.  Little green men, and I am guessing they want their toys back.  After all, this is only 1957 and Roswell is not big business yet.”  Mishka amused herself with that thought.  “I am also guessing that is why those toys were sent back East, so maybe the government could claim they were lost or destroyed in the crash and then maybe learn something valuable through reverse engineering, as your Perkins called it.”

            “Pickard.”  David corrected her.  “And you assume pretty good.”

            “But how did you know?  How could little Glen know about the Reichgo?”

            “Bobby Thompson,” Mishka said.

            “Ohhh!”  Teacher Nancy’s eyes got big as she drew out the word and David turned to face her so she could explain.  “Measles.  But it did happen very fast.  In one day he had breakouts everywhere.”

             “Doctor Thompson’s kid.”  David put two and two together and then added a note for Mishka.  “Dick Thompson is the Director overseeing the crash project.”  Mishka merely nodded before speaking.

            “Glen took a sample and I analyzed it.  It is not the measles.  It is not from this earth.  I know something of the history of this time, so it was not hard to piece things together and figure out where it came from.  Now, roll up your sleeves so I can give you your immunization shots.  The disease is not spread easily, but this is a precaution.”

            David, who had his arm draped over the back of the seat in order to turn a bit further into the conversation, pulled his arm back.  “Will it hurt?”  He asked while Mishka opened her black bag.

            “Oh, you big baby,” Teacher Nancy said.  She already had her sweater sleeve pushed up.  Doctor Mishka pulled out something that looked like a small pistol, or maybe a glue gun.  She turned Teacher Nancy’s arm, not interested in the shoulder, and began to rub around the inside of her elbow.  When she found the vein, she touched it with the gun tip and pulled the trigger.  “That’s it?”  Teacher Nancy was surprised.  She felt nothing.

            “Come,” Mishka said, and David extended his arm for the treatment, but he kept a watchful eye on the Doctor in case she pulled a fast one.  Mishka touched the gun, which made a click-click sound, and then she shot David’s arm and it was over. 

            “So how long before it takes effect?”  Teacher Nancy asked, thinking that vaccinations usually took seven to ten days at the least.

            “Immediate,” Doctor Mishka said as she put the gun back in her bag.

            “It seems these Reichgo are not the only ones with advanced technology,” David said.

            Mishka nodded.  “So, did you hear the early morning airplanes spraying the neighborhood this past week?”

            David and Nancy looked at each other.  “I thought it was for worms or caterpillars of some kind,”  David said.

            Mishka shook her head.  “A counter agent.  This alien disease will not spread but it is imperative that I locate the source and neutralize it.”

            “I see.”  Teacher Nancy turned to face the front of the car.  “God, I can’t imagine if an alien disease got loose in the world.”  She was thinking a worst case scenario, but Mishka reassured her.

            “All pox is originally alien in origin, and mostly not Reichgo in origin.  Some pox, as I am sure you know from your history, is very virulent and has gotten loose in the world, but fortunately, this particular infection is like the Reichgo version of the common cold and it does not appear to be deadly.  There are spots and a high fever for a couple of days and that is it.  Shall we drive?”

            David jolted.  “Oh, yeah.  Right.”  He started the car again and brought them to the gate.

My universe is where my stories occur.  Your universe…well, maybe you haven’t thought it through.  Hopefully this will help.

Before History Began

Science has suggested of late that there are many planets in this universe that may be capable of supporting life but few that may actually have the right combination of elements and events to produce life.  In my universe, our earth is one of the few worlds which I call “seed planets.”  Life came to exist on earth years ago and it has grown, shifted, been shifted, changed or evolved over the course of all those years producing a rich variety of species in age after age.

In my universe, the powers on the earth (Titans) watched over this ever changing landscape of life and made the effort at certain points in pre-history to preserve that which would otherwise be lost.  This was done by “seeding” other capable but otherwise barren worlds, generally within range of the earth—in this arm of the galaxy.  One of the first was the Diplodocus, a reptilian species that might best be described as “intelligent dinosaurs.”  There were others.

In the “Middle Era,” the so-called elder races were essentially humanoid in shape and type—the more so as time moved toward the younger races.  In the last days of the Middle Era, there were primarily two elder races native to the earth, and one younger race, us.

The Gott-Druk (Neanderthal) worked in stone, and lived for the most part in small and family groups, spread out over the west: North Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean.  The Gott-Druk were responsible for building the Sphinx along the Nile, and their greatest place of gathering was in the place that came to be called Jericho in later ages.  They also built temples on Malta, and a cult of painters arose in Europe—all of which we can see in our day.

The Elenar (Cro-Mangon) worked in wood and thus little, if any of their great works remain to us.  They were more advanced (technologically) at the time, having invented the wheel, the plow, and having domesticated numerous animals and practiced agriculture.

We, Homo Sapiens, the younger race learned fast and had just begun to build our own “cities” primarily in the Tigris-Euphrates area when the unthinkable happened.

By that time, some of the ancient races had begun the exploration of space.  One group in particular visited the earth and set up trade.  They were the Agdaline, a species of blithering geniuses with little or no sense of humor.  Their faces would be recognized from the many copies carved from the stones of Easter Island—but that is a story unto itself.

These Agdaline were confined by the powers to the area roughly between Jericho and the place of the Lion (on the Nile).  There, they could meet with Gott-Druk, Elenar, and humans, though we humans had little to offer that might interest them.  The Elenar and Gott-Druk began a rapid advance into technological matters, but soon enough the disaster happened. 

While experimenting with zero gravity and potential light speed technology, the Agdaline inadvertently ripped the atmosphere off their home world and sent a small moon hurtling through space, headed toward us.  There was not much time.  The Powers on the earth forced the Agdaline to give near-light speed and cryogenic (sleeper) technology to the Gott-Druk and Elenar who were then directed to new worlds where they could survive the catastrophe. 

Before you think this was an over-the-top leap in technology, though, let me remind you that at one point we had horse drawn carriages and some steam engines with rail tracks and muzzle loaded muskets and within a measly hundred years we set foot on the moon and mastered the atom itself and we do the internet.  A hundred years ago, we were just figuring out the electric light.

And us humans, with this moon hurtling straight at us?  We were left to our own devices.  When the moon grazed the earth and set the planet to wobble in earnest, and melted the ice caps and flooded the planet, a few people survived in a gopher-wood boat, but that too is another story.

            Glen sat in the sandbox and pouted.  The swings and other playground equipment were full of kids, and though the late September wind was turning too cold to swing, Glen found that when he was in the box the other kids left him alone.  He was not necessarily anti-social, but he was not pro-social either.  Not yet being four years old, he honestly did not know what he was, except that he was careful about strangers for some reason, and all of the kids at that place were strangers as far as he could tell.  He never saw any of them before his first day, a day he spent in tears, and he never did see any of them later in life either.  They did not even live in his town.  His Mom called this place Murray Hill – “Happy Hill in Murray Hill” she told him when she tried to convince him that nursery school was a wonderful thing.  Glen was not so sure it was so wonderful.  It certainly did not feel wonderful.

            Glen liked to pick up the sand and let it run through his fingers.  It was like the sands of time, he told himself.  To be sure, he did not yet have much of a concept of time other then the time he got dumped at the school and the time he got picked up; and he certainly could not tell time, but in his mind the sand was like time all the same.  The time winds were blowing strong, he told himself, and with that he looked across the road.  Over the fence and through the trees there was a huge building complex.  Glen would rather be home, away from that building altogether, but as long as he was there he felt it was important to keep an eye on the place, and at three-and-some-years-old, he did not have the presence of mind to ask why.

            Glen turned his eyes from the building when a car pulled up on the gravel drive.  A man got out and Teacher Nancy went to him as her assistant, Mrs. Waterhouse, corralled the children into the building.  Mrs. Waterhouse knew better than to bother with Glen.  She let him stay in the sand so as to avoid a fuss.

            “Nancy.”  The man called the teacher by name as he gave her a kiss on the cheek.

            “David.  Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”  Teacher Nancy asked and the man nodded.

            “But you forgot this.  I thought you might want it.”

            “Oh, blessed coffee,” the teacher said and she took a big sip before giving the man a hug.  She took a second sip before speaking again.  “So you never finished what you were saying.  What is it you are working on these days.”

            “All hush-hush stuff you know,”  He smiled to tease her with the secret.

            “What can the phone company be into that is so hush-hush?”  She was not buying it.

            “No, really.  The Labs has gotten some stuff from the government picked up in some crash out West a few years back.  We are supposed to figure out what it is and what it does.  Pickard has coined the phrase, reverse engineering.  I suppose that sound about right.”

            “Russian?”  In 1957 it was the first and most obvious assumption; but the man shook his head.

            “I don’t think so.  No one will say, but the stuff is indescribable, detailed, sophisticated.  I don’t know.  If it is Russian we might just as well surrender right now.”

            “But if it isn’t Russian, whose is it?”  Teacher Nancy asked.  She looked more curious than doubting, but Mister David just shrugged again before he pointed at Glen

            “Mrs. Waterhouse missed one,” he said.

            “Oh, that’s Glen.”  Teacher Nancy smiled and the two of them came near and squatted down to be friendly.  “Sometimes Glen spends all morning in the sandbox, don’t you Glen?”  Glen could only shrug.

            “Why is that?”  Mister David asked.  Glen pointed at the building complex in the distance.  “What is he pointing at?”  Mister David squinted.  Teacher Nancy could only shrug.  Apparently Glen pointed before when asked the same question, but no one yet figured it out.

            “Are you going there?”  Glen asked, still pointing.  It surprised his teacher who heard very few words escape Glen’s lips, but the man responded, even if it took him a minute to understand that Glen was pointing at the distant building.

            “You mean Bell Labs?  You mean the building there?  Yes I work there.”

            “It is bad, wrong, broken, sick.”  Glen used every word he could think of to explain, but it was hard for him since he, himself was not clear on what he was sensing.

            “Huh!”  Teacher Nancy could not help commenting.  “You are full of words today, aren’t you, young man?”

            “Hush.”  Mister David hushed her.  “Why is it sick?”

            Glen shook his head.  He did not have an actual answer for the question.  “It has bad things.  It is wrong.  Very wrong.  No!  No!”  He really could not explain it.

            Mister David smiled and began to think that the boy really had nothing to say.  Teacher Nancy smiled as well.  “Now, how do you know it is bad?”  Mister David asked again but this time he spoke with some disbelief in his voice.

            “They are not people things.  They are Reichgo.”  Glen said the word though he had no idea what a Reichgo was.  “I can smell them.”  He concluded, and he reached out for David’s hand and smelled the hand when David gave it to the boy.  “I smell them.”  The boy said, and with one brief blue-eyed look into David’s face, he stood, wiped the sand off his hands, and whatever else might be clinging to his hands, and ran inside.  Suddenly, there was too much going on inside his wee little head, and Glen needed some space.  He needed to be alone, but there were grown-ups speaking inside his head and he could not escape them.

            “Huh!”  David looked briefly at his own hand with a very curious expression.  “Spooky kid.”

            “I have never heard Glen say that much since the first day.”  Teacher Nancy’s eyes followed the boy to be sure he got back inside.

            David shrugged it off and let his smile return as he kissed the teacher again on the cheek.  “See you at supper,” he said, and he rose and got back in his car and headed out.

            Teacher Nancy watched and sipped on her coffee the whole time, but when David’s Hudson pulled around the corner, she shrugged it off, too, and went back to the children.

            Mister David came back three days later, near noon, when school was done for the day and Glen was waiting to be picked up.  “David?”  In that name, Teacher Nancy expressed all of her curiosity at seeing him in the middle of the day.  David hardly glanced at the teacher.  He came straight to where Glen was quietly standing.  Glen did not move.  He did not dare.  He saw the expression on Mister David’s face.

            “Tell me about the Reichgo.”  He demanded.  His voice was soft and calm, but to a boy who was not yet four it sounded like a grown-up demand.  Glen’s face curled up like he might cry, but he managed to point into the sky even as two things happened.  First there was what could only be called an explosion near the back of that distant building.  David looked sharply in that direction and mumbled something equally sharp about Rupert and Pickard.  Teacher Nancy also looked, but then the second thing that happened, Glen’s mother came and she hustled Glen into the car.  Apparently, she had also noticed the fire and she knew it would not be long before the whole area was blocked off by police cars and fire trucks.

            Bobbi looked at Lockhart,  He pulled a bit closer before he locked the wheels on his wheelchair and began.  “Glen is a person, a human being just like us only he lived a number of lives in the past and some in the future, and he can remember them, or some of them anyway, more absolutely than anyone else I ever heard of.  If you already met Diogenes, you know what I mean.  He calls it trading places through time.”

            “But I saw him actually become another person.”  Alice protested.  “He just vanished and this other person was standing right where he was standing, or squatting, actually.  Do you know what I mean?  How can he do that?”

            “It was not another person, exactly.”  Lockhart began again, but Bobbi interrupted.

            “It was still him.  It was another one of his lifetimes.  Diogenes was a first cousin of Alexander the Great way back when.”  Bobbi noticed the slight reddening of Alice’s face.  “He claims he was married to Aphrodite, the love goddess toward the end of his life.  I can’t verify that but I think some of her may have rubbed off on him.  What do you think?”  Bobbi was teasing.  It required no great insight to tell what Alice thought.

            Alice could not seem to help the smile that came to her face.  “Wait!  You don’t mean the real goddess.”

            “Later.”  This time Lockhart interrupted.  “For now you will just have to accept that he has access to other lives like no one else does.  He says since the genetic pattern is nearly exact, and since time has some small flexibility or relativity if you prefer, he doesn’t disturb the timeline when he borrows a past or future life.” 

            “Wait.”  Alice had another question, or several.  “What do you mean disturb the timeline?  Isn’t this like reincarnation or something?”

            “Absolutely not.”  Lockhart answered her.  “He says his lives are because some mysterious “Friends” as he calls them, keep forcing him to be reborn every time he tries to die.”

            “Sometimes he talks about himself as an experiment in time and genetics, like he is no more than a hamster on a treadmill with no way to get off.”  Bobbi added with a touch of sadness in her voice.  They all paused for a minute to look at Glen.

            One of the men from the table took that moment to bring over a tray of coffee, tea and snacks.  They were at cruising altitude, not that any of them ever buckled a seatbelt.

            “Wait.”  Alice regained the floor even as she accepted a cup of tea.  “You said future lives.”

            Bobbi and Lockhart looked at each other again before Bobbi took up the explanation.  “Yes.  You must be a lawyer.  And, yes.  He remembers the future, too.”  She said that much, and then she paused to sip her coffee while she consider something.  The others waited patiently, including the three at the table who were neglecting their work to listen in.  “Let me just say this…  his memory, I mean Glen.”  She pointed.  “It was toyed with at some point in his early years.  Most of the time, he has no idea that he is the Traveler and he just lives a normal, everyday life.”

            “Like a grocery clerk?”

            “He is a minister if you must know.  Mostly, though, he is the Storyteller.  That is what his other lives call him, but he claims it is not an honorific, just a job description.”

            “Anyway, he mostly lives as normal a life as such a person can live.”  Lockhart interjected.  “He says even with his memory blocked, the past and future have a tendency to leak into his mind at the most inopportune times, but without the context to understand what is happening, he says it is very strange and makes him feel like he is living as a stranger in a strange land.”

            Bobbi put her hand up to stop Lockhart from speaking further.  She continued with the explanation.  “Anyway, at times of crisis, the block on his memory is designed to come down and he remembers at least some of his past lives and usually one or more future lives as well.  And it is like actual memory, too; triggered by events and little things just like real memory.  It is a lot to process, though, all at once like that.”  Bobbi paused again to sip and reach for a cookie, bad as it was for her waist, but in this way she gave Alice time to process her own thoughts.

            “I’ve seen him like this before, some years ago.”  Lockhart said to reassure Alice that Glen would be fine after a while.  “He just needs time to straighten it all out.”  Lockhart tapped his own head and stayed away from the cookies.

            “So, he remembers the future?”  Alice shook her head.  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

            “It is the only way to understand it.”  Bobbi responded.  “And another strong reason why his case is not like some kind of reincarnation.”

            “I can see that.”  Alice understood that much.  “But, now, Traveler?”

            “Kairos, technically.  Event time.  An ancient Greek word.”  Lockhart did the translation.  “We might call him the god of history.  The Traveler is just shorthand for the Traveler in Time.” 

            “Time traveler?  Oh, of course, Diogenes.”

            Lockhart and Bobbi both nodded and there was a moment of silence before Alice spoke again.

            “So now, who is this Princess?”

            Lockhart and Bobbi passed another glance, but they were smiling.  “She is a lawyer.”  Bobbi said again.  “She doesn’t miss much.”

            Lockhart nodded and pointed at Glen.  “He is the Princess.”  Before Alice could respond, Glen lifted his head.  He was speaking, though it did not seem like he was speaking to any of them.

            “What?  Sure, that might help.”  He said, and he stood and vanished from the airplane, to be replaced by an absolutely stunning young woman who was maybe twenty-something at most.  She stood around five-seven, with long golden brown hair that was so light it was nearly blond, and eyes as blue as Glen’s, but her eyes flashed with life, youth and health.  Indeed, Alice could not see an ounce of fat on that perfect body.  The Princess stood with a smile for Lockhart, and she turned once all of the way around, slowly.  She was in a dress that fell halfway to her knees but hid nothing of her figure.  Alice wondered where the armor and weapons went, but she held her tongue as the Princess spoke. 

            “So how do I look?”

            “Beautiful, as always.”  Bobbi spoke first.

            “Gorgeous.”  Lockhart confirmed as he matched the Princess’ smile, and then some.

            Alice thought the word gorgeous was an understatement, but her mouth said something else as she watched the woman sit in Glen’s chair.  The Princess kept her knees locked together as only a real woman would do.  “So you are the Princess?  Wait a minute.”  Alice’s thoughts caught up with what she was seeing.  “Do you mean he has lived as a woman?”

            The Princess nodded.  “Half of my lifetimes.”  She confirmed before turning to Bobbi.  “There was so much memory coming all at once I was afraid my Storyteller might burn out his little brain.  What?  Oh, he says his brain is not so little.”  The Princess laughed softly, and the laugh was as beautiful as the rest of her.

            “But isn’t he still remembering?”  Bobbi asked.

            “Yes, but this way I get some of the pressure and he doesn’t have the distractions so he can focus better on processing it all.  At least I think that is what is happening.”  She shrugged.

            “All right.”  Alice spoke and threw up her hands for emphasis.  “I’m getting it, but not really.  I think you better start at the beginning.”  She looked straight at the Princess.  “And I mean you whoever or whatever you are.”

            “Me?  I was born in 228 BC.”  The Princess said.   She sound a bit confused, like maybe she was having trouble translating the English into her native Greek.

            “Do you mean the Traveler?”  Lockhart asked.  “That would be around 4500 BC, near as we know.”

            “I think she means just Glen’s life.”  Bobbi tried, and Alice nodded and pointed at Bobbi.

            “Like when did he first realize he lived all of these other lifetimes and when did he first, what did you call it, trade places in time?”

            “Oh yes.”  The Princess liked the idea.  “Talking it out might be the best thing to do.”

            “Well.”  Bobbi drew out the word as they watched the Princess vanish and Glen return.  He was dressed in the jeans and shirt he wore in the market and, Alice noticed, not keeping his knees together at all. 

            “That would be before my time,” Bobbi said.  “Lockhart, you met him at that college in Michigan.  What was he, seventeen?  Eighteen?”

            “Actually.”  Glen got their attention.  “I was remembering a time when I was four, or actually not quite four.  Things don’t usually happen that early in my lifetimes.  Normally, I get the chance to develop my own personality and learn some things before time starts to open up, generally sometime during puberty; but this was a special case if I remember it rightly.  Let me see…”