“Hitting mute for a minute,” Mark declared tapping his earpiece.
Exiting the building, Mark looked across the wide road and then scanned to the right. Normally, there would be plenty of vehicles moving one or both ways in front of him, blocking his view of the opposite sidewalk. Now there were none. The sounds from those engines propelling vehicles to the next light would have created a steady droning of noise. Instead, there was quiet. Not silence, but gentle sounds including voices, a siren, and some distant vehicles.
During his scan he counted fifteen people between here and the next intersection, people who were not engaged in typical activities. Most were sitting on a bench or the street curb; others were using a wall to move as if they would fall without the support. There was a car on the sidewalk to the right with two people leaning on the trunk.
He swung his head around to the left towards the intersection where he needed to be. Just ahead was a group of people, two sitting on a bench and three standing in front looking down at them. Heading up the sidewalk, Mark could not help himself as he slowed walking by the group to listen and observe.
“No, I don’t want you to move me,” said a young man who was sitting. “I just need to rest.”
As he said this, his body was tilting too far to one side when one of the standing women reached out a hand to steady him. As his slide continued to take him onto the armrest of the bench, the man standing in the middle dove in to clasp his shoulders between both hands in order to keep him from falling completely over the side. He seemed to have no energy to hold himself up.
“Are you sure that you didn’t take anything,” the helpful man said loudly directly into the young man’s face.
The young man tried to raise his arms as if in a slow-motion defense that could only block a floating balloon coming his way.
“No, mister, I don’t need you yelling at me.”
The other woman asked, “Then why are you like this? What did you do?”
“I haven’t slept in two days according to my phone, but it was weird because the sun never went down.” He took full breaths between parts of sentences, slow but not forced breaths. “And you were just standing over there, I mean, you were at the far side of the building earlier, but it took you an hour to get to the door.” His arm slowly raised up. “I thought you were going to go in there, the City Hall, so I checked and found out your name,” he said with another breath pointing to one woman, “is Cindi with an i.”
“How do you know my name?” came the scared response.
“I went into your purse,” he replied with a breath as his head now seemed to droop downward. “And saw your driver’s license. I know how old you are too.”
“What?” she screamed as she dove into her purse.
Mark was jolted from staring and chastised himself for having stopped walking for any length of time. Time that he did not have to waste. He barely had proceeded into the street when he was drawn to this group, feet frozen there to listen. Remembering his mission, he forged ahead prepared to use time to his advantage, shifted time that is. Approaching the intersection, he observed that a police car was placed sideways in the lanes with its door open as if the officer bailed out in a hurry. Scanning from left to right, Mark sighted the officer on the far side of the street bending over to help two more returned people, or he assumed.
He halted in the middle of the street, eyes gliding just above the police car. Spotting the green box housing the laser and sensor set up mounted next to the traffic light, Mark viewed the box with a sense of awe he had not felt before. It, or the instructions that would be sent to this box, were about to change him. Physically change him.
Again, shaking his head to prevent the fear from collecting, Mark surveyed the area further. He saw multiple stopped cars on all sides of the intersection. In place to be shifted by ADRI, Mark spun. There was an odd sudden feeling that he should be dodging traffic on this four-lane road. Whatever traffic was moving, it wasn’t coming this way. In fact, no moving vehicles were in sight though he still heard the city sound of engines.
Phone connected to Trudy, he was not convinced that he was ready for what he was about to see or do. As a scientist, he ran and observed countless experiments, but was about to enter one himself. Would this be like going into another dimension or more like Jurassic Park? Being resolved that it was his problem to manage, there was a team of Trudy, Joseph, and ADRI ready to assist.
Mark had in his mind several things he had to figure out. Moving 50 times faster was needed to make the plan and set up everything that he could for the search and rescue of the trapped people. Then, determine how to communicate this plan quickly to his team, normal time would be too slow. He was also guessing that he would have to cover a large part of the city. While the faster time would help, he needed to figure out how to get around easily and cover a large part of the city.
With one finger, Mark tapped the earpiece to proceed.
“Okay, Trudy,” he began. “Set the time for the one second interval, and I’ll be within range of this laser for the return.”
“I’m not so sure about this, Dr. G.”
“But you’re ready? One subject to shift?”
“We have you identified, in the street if that’s you. And should be able to track you, then bring you back, or shift you back. Whatever it does.”
“This will be a quick look so that I can tell you what I need or whether I can even help them.” Mark swiped his watch to get to a timer displaying 0.00 seconds along with a start and a reset button.
Trudy let out a sigh. “I also have several more commands entered so you can tell me the next step as soon as… well possible.”
“Great. Joseph, are you watching the sensor data to monitor what ADRI does?”
“Three screens full with a screen video recording the entire process.” Joseph was trying to stay calm, but instead blurted out, “But I agree with Trudy. I always figured time travel would be fun, but I do not know what weird stuff this laser is doing to people.”
“Trudy, engage,” Mark said, then started the timer on his watch.
With a brief click, Trudy sent the request to begin a shift with the one identified subject. This was not a trial. ADRI was in fact an advanced computer that could execute the requested commands. With the identity of the green box Joseph had provided, Trudy activated the shift sequence this incredible intelligence discovered and perhaps no one understood, at least no person on the team.
Two seconds later, there was a clicking noise over the phone. Trudy’s face scrunched at the noise. Before she could pick the phone up, it buzzed showing a call from Mark. Hanging up and accepting the call, Trudy started to say, “Doctor…” but was interrupted.
“Oh my God!” Mark yelled. “Send me back! Send me back. One minute normal time. Go now, now! Come on, go, go!”
Trudy’s hand jerked too quickly at the intensity of Mark’s request passing right over the 1-minute button she had prepared. Joseph lost track of his purposeful watching of the sensor data and propelled himself closer to the phone. Trudy made an adjustment of the mouse position.
“Engaging!” This came out very loud in Joseph’s ear. She clicked just before the ‘ing’ part of the word. Total time from the end of the first shift Mark experienced was 12 seconds until the start of the Trudy began the next shift, or ten minutes in faster movement.
The timer Trudy had loaded at the bottom of the screen began its countdown starting at 1 minute. She looked over at Joseph for support, but he was staring downward at her phone, mouth slightly open. As she looked back to the timer on the screen, she noticed that she was breathing far too quickly for having just moved a mouse and clicked with a single finger. She knew this was her reaction to feeling anxiety in a high stress situation.
Worry for Mark overtook her.
Doc Dave DeWitt 