Traveller Probo

Peter Conti hung up his call and paused to gaze reflectively at the view through his impressive, plate-glass office window. From his vantage point at one of the upper floors of the Willis Tower, still commonly referred to by locals as the Sears Tower, downtown Chicago was especially awe-inspiring. It was a view of which he rarely tired. Once the world’s tallest building, the head office of Helguard Security was now located in the famous Chicago Loop District. But immersed as he was in his thoughts, he barely noticed the view.

The Transporter, it was always about the Transporter!

Conti became the owner of the most valuable technological resource through serendipity, when the PhD project he had funded accidentally invented the device. To top it off, they had also invented the new baggage scanner that now changed the world. Thanks to their invention, the processing of international passengers and freight had become so much more efficient and speedy. Not bad for an investment which cost little more than a pittance, though enough to help his favourite niece through her PhD. Now, her company, Woomera Technologies, was not only part owner of the device, their continued developments significantly boosted the stock value of Helguard. As owner of the world’s most influential security technology company, Peter Conti was now one of the world’s wealthiest men.

Yet none of the science boffins, his niece included, had been able to determine how the Transporter actually worked. Most infuriating of all, they still hadn’t been able to duplicate the device.

With only one unit in such demand, it was inevitable that wear and tear would catch up with them.

Conti was still forced to deal with the team who had discovered the original Transporter, though the members had scattered to the four winds. Of the original Woomera Technologies, only his niece Mel and her husband Zak remained.

Of the other original members of the Woomera team, one – Craig … someone, Conti thought - was dead. He had turned his back on material success and become a missionary, though was killed for his troubles. Conti still worked with Allen Nguyen’s new company, Pelagion Systems, and a major product release was planned which should help more profits roll in for them both.

Which left Phil Walker.

He was a conundrum.

Now a senior executive of Helguard, Phil ran his own research department and had become the company spokesman for the Transporter. He was a natural, and it quickly became apparent that his role was most influential. Conti was growing increasingly nervous at how cosy Phil was becoming with some of the US Government’s more senior military advisers. Helguard now supplied security measures to most governments, so the US had taken a special interest. Conti feared their prying, or even interference. There was still the largely unresolved matter where the NSA had been caught bugging Mel’s original research team. When it was discovered that their research area was bugged, and with Helguard equipment no less, surreptitious inquiries soon exposed a mole within Helguard senior management. One of his most trusted senior aids was found to be an NSA agent and promptly dismissed, though it was doubtful that was the end of the matter. The problem may have just burrowed itself deeper, like an invisible tick. Conti had become paranoid, fearing that anyone in his company could be a government spy. He suspected that they sought his most valuable intellectual property; the technical details of the Transporter.

He had enlisted Allen Nguyen to develop software that would allow him check his team more effectively. Accepting the challenge, within months Nguyen had nervously presented a search programme that was breathtaking in its simplicity, allowing data to be collected from any internet linked computer, even deeply hidden in the most heavily encrypted and protected hard-drives or servers. Within hours, Conti had a full profile of each of his senior management, information now isolated on an off-line drive Nguyen assured was protected. Conti had exactly what he needed.

Nguyen was uneasy about what he had achieved and what they had found. That software would remain their secret, for their action would see them in jail, or dead. Even more worrying was if such software became accessible to any Government.

Aside from discovering, in his staff, a few previously unknown minor misdemeanours and one porn-addict, Conti now had a list of no fewer than five NSA agents secreted into Helguard. A couple were no more than informants, while three were in regional management with access to significant levels of secure information. A quiet lunch with a senior NSA contact had the agent demanding proof of Conti’s allegations and then, with the details in hand, was compelled to give a shamefaced apology. No doubt the NSA and other agencies would wonder at how he had found such highly secure information but Conti wasn’t telling.

Phil Walker headed Helguard’s billion-dollar Transporter research programme to create another time machine but their efforts had, so far, seen no success. The world’s best and brightest engineers and physicists were still no closer to understanding how the Transporter actually worked.

Conti grimaced at the complexities of the Transporter. There was still vociferous debate as to whether the past to which researchers were sent was actually The past or A past, whether the Saxon England programme’s most famous researcher, Michael Hunter, actually lived in the past of the world which was known by current humanity, or whether it was an option; a parallel history. Did the actions of Hunter and the other Saxon Traveller researchers not affect history as known by current humanity but a parallel history to be felt by a different humanity where the USA or UK might not even exist? Some liked to formulate that the Transporter was not a Time Machine but a means by which humans of the current time-line could skip to another universe. But the theories were just that and sometimes nothing more than idle speculation. Conti had never really understood any of the theories as the whole thing tended to be mind-bending.

It was vital Helguard develop another Transporter or Transporters. Spare Transporters would allow more than one Traveller programme to take place and prevent the loss of valuable knowledge in the event of an accident or act of terrorism. It would, of course, also mean less volatility regarding the selection of countries with which to work while permitting a much greater accumulation of historical, cultural, and even biological data. Helguard would still control the greatest show on earth; the race to study the past.

Phil had, so far, been imaginative and diligent in his research, for Helguard’s budget allowed not only access to the most effective diagnostic equipment but also attracted the very best scientific and engineering minds. Physicists and metallurgists had examined the tangle of wires they called the ganglion, which was only about a cubic centimetre in size but it remained an enigma.

Coupled with their lack of progress, the disaster that was the New Zealand Traveller project had the entire concept of historical research again under critical scrutiny. Conti had been assured that the data and biological samples collected from the New Zealand project had been enormously beneficial so, despite the tragic fatalities, they would weather this storm. While it was doubtful that every project would be so financially productive as the Saxon Traveller mission, the latest biological resource proposals from New Zealand might mean significant returns as lost species were gathered and plans developed to reintroduce them back to their original habitats. The great extinctions might be just a part of nature but there was definite appeal in the regrowth of lost plant species, mammals and birdlife. According to Conti’s product development team, expanding the bio-arm of Transporter Corp would reduce the risk of Travelling to locations where locals might seek to murder any stranger in sight.

Helguard was in the best shape ever. Business was up, research and development of new products had been fruitful and the money was rolling in.

And now Mel, his prodigal niece and director of Woomera Technology, wanted to meet.

Though their business relationship had always been fruitful, their personal relations were a shambles. Mel had kept her call short and sweet. She curtly advised that she was to travel from Australia and would visit his office. She would be there tomorrow.

There was, she said, something he had to know.