The Traveler

PROLOGUE DAYS OF FUTURE’S PAST

The tremendous gravitational forces pulling at the man sent his conscious thoughts spinning into obscurity. Through the reinforced windscreen he saw the sky tumbling over and over until the view became a strobelike effect that made his stomach heave. He tried desperately to breathe but found his bodily functions had ceased to work. As he tried to focus on the instrumentation panel in front of him his eyes dimmed and his view became one of tunnel-vision extreme. The instrument panel shorted out and smoke and the acrid smell of ozone filled the small cabin. The man knew he had a task to perform, but as he struggled to keep conscious he could not fathom what that chore was. A jarringly sharp slam of air moved the craft to the left and the man heard but did not understand a sonic boom. Trapped inside the quickly falling capsule, the man broke the sound barrier in its speedy downward descent.

Through the pain and his blurry vision the man heard a series of warning beeps and tones coming from somewhere he could not see. The man tore at the clear visor covering his face, trying desperately to unlock the slide that would allow the protective helmet to be removed. He finally found the slide lock and shoved the glass visor up, and then his bodily reactions took over as he fought for oxygen. The scream of air outside the thick glass had become unbearable. The noise threatened to burst the large man’s eardrums as he and the machine plummeted. He tried desperately to focus on the sound of the warning lights and the computer’s continued hail of “pull up, pull up.” He eventually forced his eyes open and he saw the swirling view of sky, then a deep greenness, then white, and then sky again.

“Wake up!” came an unbidden voice from his quickly evaporating memories of human speech.

The man tried again as the frantic inner voice faded to nothing. His eyes fluttered and then he concentrated. He was confused because this was not expected. A decision, a thought, a prayer, and underlying all of this the idea that he knew his life was over. He once again focused and he saw the large red light blinking frantically in front of him. Now what was he supposed to do about it? His mind tried to take him back into the safety of his memory to protect him from the struggle of deduction. He desperately wanted the beeping to stop. He slammed his thickly gloved palm through his anger and frustration into the flashing red light.

The man immediately heard a loud pop that jolted his body painfully against the seat back. He felt the deceleration, and that restrictive motion again made his stomach want to relieve itself of anything he may have eaten in the past few hours. He felt his body jerk and the pain of deceleration strained something in his back. Soon the tumbling stopped and an eerie silence filled the cabin.

As he started to close his eyes against the pain in his back the man felt the craft he was in slam into a yielding force from below. Before he knew what was happening the vehicle rolled completely over and he found himself upside down in his restrictive and limited world. Finally, as he bobbed upon some unknown surface, the man lost consciousness. The last words he spoke he failed to understand as they flowed out of his mouth unbidden.

“Not this time, Jack, not this time…”

The man’s world went black.

His eyes opened. He felt as if he was in an almost weightless condition. The man turned his head and vomited onto the now dark instrument panel. The man dry-heaved until there was a belching satisfaction from his stomach. He didn’t vomit but felt the relief nonetheless. He then felt the coolness of water as it struck his face, and he realized that there was water coming into the enclosed space that had become his confined world. He tried to look out of the windscreen but saw a revolving scene of sunlight, then the darkness of water, and then sunlight once more.

He reached over and felt the tug of restraint and then he realized he had a three-point harness on. He snapped off the restraint and freed himself as the world started to flood into the capsule. He remembered a safety brief he had had and popped the canopy as the water flooded in. He remembered something else and reached over and hit the flashing blue rescue beacon and then slammed his gloved hand down on the lifeboat release. As he did he failed to notice that the wristwatch he was wearing on his gloved and protected wrist was torn free and settled to the bottom of the flooded cockpit.

As the man tore loose from the fast-sinking capsule, he heard the rubber raft and all of his supplies explode as bottled air filled the large boat. He rolled free of the capsule just as the glass windows went under. He splashed and fought his unyielding suit as he struggled to gain the lifeboat. Just as he made it into the life-saving boat he looked up and saw a large head as it rose from the water in front of him. He flinched away as the reptilian features submerged. The creature must have been curious as to all of the noise on the surface, and then it vanished. Before it did the man realized that the animal he had just seen was not normal. The head was that of a crocodile and the body of a fish. He shook his head and collapsed into the confines of the bright yellow raft.

Admiral (temporary grade) Carl Everett realized at that last moment that he was definently not in Kansas anymore.

The bunker was designed for maximum bomb protection. The men and equipment buried deep inside the underground facility were as safe from RAF bombs as any cowering official in the extensive Berlin bunker complexes. The two enormous elevator systems lowered the heavy equipment needed for this final test. These large platform elevators traveled along the same conduit tunnel needed for the heavy electric cable system that traveled the twenty-five miles from the Möhne dam. The rubber-encased cables were capable of supplying enough electricity to not only Berlin but Munich and Cologne as well. No power coupling that size had ever been supplied to one facility in the history of electrical engineering.

The bunker itself was not that remarkable in design: five levels of heavily reinforced concrete surrounded by sound-dampening sand lining the outer walls. The entire complex was built on large steel springs to keep vibration to the outside world to a bare minimum. This facet was the outstanding design feature of the system. The city of Dortmund never suspected the bunker system was there at all. The comings and goings of the many technicians needed for the project was tightly controlled through a tunnel access portal fifteen miles outside of the city. Trucks would drop off the needed men and material and then would continue on to Dortmund, never allowing prying eyes to view their comings and goings. The heavier equipment was brought in by truck and aircraft that many area residents supposed were meant for the enormous dam twenty miles distant. For the locals it was not well known that anyone caught within the perimeter of the hidden bunker was never heard from again. Summary execution was the order of the day for any would-be hiker.

Three hundred feet of downward travel was completed in eerie silence by the five men inside the smaller of the two transit elevators. The smallest of the five stood with his leather-gloved hands clasped in front of him. It had been this miniscule gentleman who had commenced full-scale start-up of the experiments that he personally dubbed Operation Traveler. Once the covert order was received and the funds swindled from the military for the massive project, the strange equipment was quick to start arriving on December 15, 1941. Two years of hard work and the expenditure of stolen wealth the Third Reich would never miss and the “Wellsian Doorway” was finally complete.

The small man reached up to his greatcoat’s thick collar and closed it more firmly around his chilled neck.

“Apologies, Reichsführer, the temperature on the main concourse and laboratories has to be maintained at a constant fifty-four degrees. It is imperative that we never vary as our computing apparatus is extremely temperamental.”

Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer of the SS, the head of the most powerful organization outside of the German Wehrmacht, stood silently, not bothering to acknowledge the man in the white lab coat nor temper a comment of his explanation. He finally spared the man a glance. In the dull lighting Professor Lars Thomsen could only see his own reflection in the small wire-rimmed glasses of the former chicken farmer turned mass murderer.

“I am just pleased to note, Professor, that the many millions of Reichsmarks I have funneled to this project were not wasted on creature comforts. I can bare the chill.”

“As you will see, Herr Reichsführer, your money”—he quickly noticed the frown as the pencil-thin mustache wrinkled at the corners of the small man’s mouth—“with respects, the Reich’s money, has been well spent.”

The elevator started slowing as it reached the fifth of five levels three hundred feet below the forest floor.

“I assume your special cargo arrived intact from the east?” Himmler asked as two SS guards dressed in long black field coats slid the large elevator doors aside and then immediately went to attention as Himmler waited for his answer inside.

“Yes,” Thomsen answered as his eyes flicked to the other three men accompanying them. These black-coated officers raised a brow his way. He knew the semi-disguised men were private industrialists that had assisted the leader of the SS in funding and in the material supply needed, and then coordinated the most technical project in the history of mankind. Himmler finally turned and faced the scientist full on.

“Good, with securing the special package perhaps you can now realize how close this project is to my heart. To directly challenge the Führer’s edict, one that was of my own design, would be considered by some as”—he smiled but only briefly—“treasonous? But the need to have complete cooperation from the test subjects cancels all that out, yes?”

Thomsen knew he had better answer right or he would be buried deep inside this bunker when it was razed to the ground after Himmler got what it was he desired out of him. He would show the man his resolve in the finalizing of the design and its test subjects.

“How could the advancement of science ever be construed as treasonous, Herr Reichsführer? As you will see our test subject is now cooperative and very much intelligent enough to see the final test through. The Traveler has accomplished this feat more than once. With the assurances now in place with the transfer of her brother, yes, the Traveler will complete the final test and we can begin to transfer equipment to Berlin at the first opportune moment.”

Himmler raised his brow and then nodded. He turned and stepped from the large lift. “I am pleased to hear your reputation for humanitarian causes has its limits.” Heinrich Himmler looked back at the much taller scientist as he wanted to see his expression when he realized that the scientist’s small meetings he held with his staff over the use of slave labor as test subjects had not gone unnoticed. Thomsen remained silent as Himmler smiled again, this time even more brief than the first, and then nodded for his security detail to move ahead. Thomsen and the other three observers moved quickly to catch up.

The men were led to a large enclosed area that overlooked an even larger room filled with men, women, and equipment, the likes of which none of the SS men or industrialists had ever seen before. Standing in the middle of the laboratory space was what looked like a large door frame constructed of a material that was not immediately recognizable. This frame had large conductors that coiled out of the top and sides of the machine. The entire flooring was covered in a rubberized material that protected the workers inside from static electricity. The men and women all wore coats of either white or blue — it was explained to Himmler that the technicians had been broken into two teams. The white team handled the power output and consumption, which would be massive in scope, while the blue team was in charge of radar tracking, signal acquisition, and would perform the actual conducting of the test. There were sixteen rows of stations with a technician at each console and over 170 power cables running from the monitoring stations to the Doorway, as the Reichsfürher had come to call it. He was adamant about using the doorway’s code name because of its British connotations in using its full moniker, the Wellsian Doorway, in honor of the man who wrote about this very subject many years before.

Thomsen turned and bowed his head at Himmler as the Reichsführer remained standing at the large, thick window that gave visitors a view of the entire floor below.

“With your permission,” the German scientist asked.

The small man nodded just once.

“As you know, gentlemen, this project began in earnest in 1941. It is meant as a ‘fail-safe,’ if you will, against the Americans entering the war against Germany, a scenario our farsighted Reichsführer saw as a precursor to the Fatherland losing the war with so much of that world pitted against us. This fail-safe, gentlemen, is now ready and may I say with pride, fully functioning. This will be the final non-German personnel test in the schedule. The next test will be conducted by a representative of the Reichsfüher’s staff and myself when our equipment has been properly placed inside our Berlin complex.”

Himmler knew that they had lost at least sixty reassigned non-German personnel in the doorway’s testing. Some of the lost were recovered right back inside the facility, mangled and in grisly pieces at the doorway’s opening, or were lost in the void of time and space.

“As you already know the first gate was commissioned in May of 1942 and was completed that same month. Our scheduling of tests has been nonstop since that historic day. The first success came three days ago.” Thomsen handed Himmler a folded newspaper. As he was unfolding it he saw the headline in bold print as described by the London Times over one year ago: “American Fortress of Corregidor Falls to Japs.” And then next to the headline was the scrawled signature of none other than himself. Himmler nodded as he refolded the newspaper. “May I assume that is your signature next to the headline, Herr Reichsführer, and no others?”

The miniscule man nodded his head and handed the newspaper over to the next man who examined it and passed it on.

“As you know, the very first Wellsian Doorway was built right here in this room you see below. It was dismantled exactly six months ago as we built the secondary door — the one you are now seeing below. The first doorway has ceased to exist for exactly one year, gentlemen, as it was dismantled in the past — only the doorway and its signal remain. No personnel, no power other than what it would take to run the testing. This newspaper and several others like it were placed next to the first doorway over a year ago. To see these newspapers again is proof positive that the Wellsian Doorway”—here he paused for dramatic effect—“works beyond all expectations.”

Himmler looked pleased but only he knew just how pleased.

“The third doorway was completed this month, only this one was constructed in Berlin at a secret location known only to the assembly team and the Reichsführer. This doorway will be utilized if the worst-case scenario happens and the war is lost. The new location is far more viable an option of escape for… you gentlemen than out here in Dortmund.”

“So, we are convinced this is the only way in which Einstein’s hypothesis can be achieved?” asked the man who represented Krupp Steel.

“Yes, Herr Einstein has theorized that the balance of inner-dimensional travel can only be achieved through conducting poles of influence. In other words, one doorway has to be connected to another doorway or the travel is unachievable if the direct transfer of material, or in this case, a human, can get to the coordinating doorway in the past. If there is no corresponding doorway the Traveler will be lost and deposited in a time frame, air, water, or land coordinates not of his choosing. Maybe even lost three or four kilometers above the Earth, there would be no rhyme or reason to the Traveler’s exit point from the originating Wellsian Doorway without a corresponding doorway, or signal for the first doorway to lock on to.”

“So, in essence, what you are saying is the Traveler would not only be sent to a time in the past not of his choosing, but may also materialize deep within the oceans or miles into the sky?”

“Correct, it was never hypothesized by Einstein that this was a safe science to use.”

“We know it takes an inordinate amount of power to create the rip in time, but how is that action achieved? The thoughts and schemes of men such as yourself and Herr Einstein fly far above our barbaric ways of thinking,” the immaculately dressed gentleman from Klienmann Electronics inquired.

“Ah, the gist of the theory.” Thomsen clapped his hands together in excitement as Himmler took in a deep breath.

He was forced to listen to the egghead braggart tell his tale, one in which he was growing ever tired of hearing. The man could not keep his mouth shut, and Himmler knew that was going to be a problem that was easily remedied when the final testing and assembly was complete inside the Berlin city limits. He brushed all thought of covering his tracks aside as Thomsen continued his explanation.

“The doorway we have here will read the coordinates we have programmed into the Traveler’s jump pattern, which in turn will read the radio and electron waves from the area of the entered coordinates. When it doesn’t find a corresponding signal the signal amplifiers start a search until it finds the correct signal from a doorway we know isn’t there any longer, because we dismantled all but the portal and signal amplifiers almost as soon as it was built. The signal is then transferred to a transmission tower high in the Harz Mountains. The reinforced radio waves will search time and space for its sister signal. We know it will not find it simply because it no longer exists — in this current time frame — but it does occupy the same space in the past. Still, the searching transmission will not be defeated when the acquisition of past signal cannot be found. It will expand into space, which we all know is limitless. However, our signal transmitters are so powerful that it travels, and then travels even farther through space until it gets a glimmer of a return.” Thomsen gestured toward the laboratory floor where a technician leaned into a microphone at his station.

“Signal acquired at zero twenty hours local time, latitude fifty-one degrees north, longitude seven degrees twenty-seven east.”

“Excellent, now confirm signal origin, please,” Thomsen said into the intercom.

As the men in the room watched on, the signal emanating from the doorway below it ceased to beep. On the overhead speakers they heard a weaker signal coming from somewhere other than the doorway they were looking at.

“Signal capture confirmed, the doorways are conversing with each other,” called out the technician from below.

“Are you saying that the transmission is now being picked up by the original doorway dismantled last year?” one of the three industrialists asked. Thomsen saw the smile grow on Himmler’s face, and that was the only approval he needed.

“Correct. Now we will make the connection and the doorway will open. Thus far we have the power to only send two hundred kilos through the door, but we will expand on that as we get more power from the Möhne Dam. The force of the connection expands the rift until a portal, tunnel as we call it, is constructed through the time and space dimensions as described by my colleague Herr Einstein. We have yet to figure the dynamics of the tunnel, but we will learn far more in the next year or so with continued testing and refinement. Soon we will have the full dynamics of the doorway solved.”

“You have until Christmas 1945, Herr Professor,” Himmler said as the others in the room looked shocked.

“Such a precise and restrictive date, Herr Reichsfüher?” Thomsen inquired worriedly.

“My offices have calculated the approximate month of Germany’s final destruction, and that was the most optimistic view rendered. By then we will all be on the run from the Jew-loving allies. Then we will be caught and hung.” Himmler turned and faced the men in the room. They all knew that his estimates of the downfall of the Thousand-Year Reich were accurate. “This machine has to be online before this happens. I, gentlemen, do not intend to follow our great leader into his immortal destiny.”

The men in the room were now only twenty minutes away from confirming the fact that they had a viable escape route out of Germany when the war was finally lost.

The plan? Run to a place they knew was far safer than the capital would be in 1945. That place was right here, almost two years in the past.

The age of time travel had arrived.

Squadron Leader Guy Gibson felt the heaviness of his Avro Lancaster bomber as it flew at twenty-two thousand feet above France. They had successfully departed England without arousing suspicion just as the plan had called for. His squadron of heavy night bombers was now entering Germany without the Luftwaffe knowing they were coming. Target — the Möhne Dam near Dortmund, Germany. Their task, take out the dam that supplied power to various locations the allies wished to go away. Not only was the process of developing the hard water needed in atomic research progressing near the dams of Germany, but the rumors of even more disturbing projects had started to filter through the minutia of intelligence coming through London and Washington.

Gibson checked on his navigator.

“How are we coming back there, Terry?” he asked through his rubber mask.

“Eighty-seven kilometers from target. We are exactly two minutes ahead of schedule.”

“Bloody good,” Gibson said to himself as he knew the timing of the bomb drop had to be precise to the minute for the most audacious attack to date outside of the American raid on Tokyo by Colonel Jimmy Doolittle a year before.

“Very good, boys. Now, how is our darling little Bouncing Baby Boy doing back there?” Gibson asked into his mic.

“Upkeep is now breathing, waiting for final arming sequence,” came the reply from the bomb bay compartment of the large aircraft.

Hanging half in and half out of the bomb bay doors was what the RAF had dubbed “Upkeep.” The cylindrical bomb was designed to hit the water in front of a dam and “skip” over the reservoir to the wall of concrete and slowly settle to the bottom of the reservoir where it would detonate at its base. The resulting explosion would be catastrophic to the core of the dam, bringing it all down. There would be two nights of these specialized raids on the dam complexes of Germany.

The Bouncing Baby Boy was on its way to end Germany’s attempt at developing an atomic weapons platform. However, Squadron Leader Gibson had been briefed and knew that the mission was so much more than that.

“Expand the doorway, please, gentlemen,” Thomsen said as an assistant started passing out earplugs. It was Himmler who raised a brow. “The sonic wave that assaults the inner ear can be rather uncomfortable without protection, Herr Reichsführer.” He nervously watched as the leader of the SS nodded his head only once.

Below, the technicians were moving about excitedly as the doorway started to expand by hydraulic lines into a more circular pattern that allowed the stainless steel frame, lined with ceramic tiles, to take its shape so the magnets inside the ceramics could negotiate the complex design. The ceramics were designed to hold back the generated heat that would in turn protect the Traveler from being fried alive inside. The Wellsian Doorway was now six times the size it had been when the hydraulics expansion had started. A loud clang was heard as fifty technicians came through an expanded tunnel with an electric cart pulling a long train of what looked like chain-link. The entirety of the chain was one hundred feet in length and looked as if it went from one conductive coil to the next. Once the electric car was in place a remotely controlled arm started pulling the secured end of the chain up until the entire length was only a few feet from the concrete floor.

“All nonessential personnel evacuate the test area,” came an announcement from below as the room was totally cleared with the exception of ten technicians who remained fixated on their consoles. “Connect the light accelerator.”

Himmler stood and went to the window as he watched the most expensive piece of hardware ever developed by German science as it dangled off the floor. The chain itself was constructed out of a hard plastic material that had been “weaved” together, forming a composite of nylon, copper, and plastic to form a new element called rylar, a composite manufacturing system originally regarded as years ahead of the curve in composite technology and would eventually fill the need in the aircraft industry for lightweight materials. In this experiment the material would be used to control the tremendous amount of heat generated by the doorway. Interspaced at equal intervals along this chain was what made the proposition of displacement possible — industrial blue diamonds. Himmler and his SS had spent two years collecting these hard-to-come-by diamonds the world over, stolen from museums that had been ransacked by the German army and raids on South African mining facilities. All together there were fifty-six five-ounce diamonds ensconced in the ceramic cocoon, which resembled large, oblong bluish pearls.

As the observers watched on, the chain was moved to the very top of the expanded rectangle of the doorway. The robotic arm held it there by the manipulations of a trained technician. They heard loud humming as a bracket was lowered from the top of the doorway and the arm hooked the chain to it. Then the arm released that end and connected the opposite end. Now the large diamond-ensconced chain was loosely hanging from the hook as the manipulating arm was moved away. The mood was silent as the robotic arm was moved and stored.

“Stand by for charging of the system,” Thomsen said into the intercom as a wall was raised below to protect the technicians at their controls. They would be shielded by the charging of the doorway when a flood of neutrinos and charged particles of ion were introduced to the conductive chain. Thomsen could see that Himmler was wide-eyed as he watched. Even though he had seen film of the previous tests and its success Himmler was still fascinated as he watched it live. For the success, or for the chance to watch one of his precious subjects lose their lives, Thomsen wasn’t sure. “Herr Reichsführer, when the doorway is fully charged, do not be alarmed when you feel a disorientation as it comes to full power. Its sound waves act as an hallucinogen introduced through the inner ear for some.”

“Is it dangerous to us?” he asked as he once again took a seat to watch.

“Frankly, Herr Reichsführer, we just don’t know what the long-term effects will be.”

Himmler nodded. He really didn’t care since the damnable technology would only be used once and for a singular purpose — his escape from the Russians, or the allies.

The lights throughout the complex dimmed as power was brought online. Five miles down the line, buried deeply underground, were the three large rubber-encased conduit electrical lines that ran in from the Möhne Dam twenty-five miles away. They were heating up so much the rubber casing started to sizzle.

“Preparing to charge,” came the confident announcement from below.

Thomsen, with a final look and nod from Himmler, opened the intercom to the laboratory below. “Charge the doorway!”

A piercing scream filled the air around every man watching the test. Himmler forced his hands to his ears and then he quickly inserted the earplugs that he had forgotten about. As the audio assault continued one of the SS guards bent over and went to his knees as he became violently ill. Himmler angrily nodded that the man should be removed and punished later for showing his weakness.

“Pulse!” Thomsen said, hoping that the final charging of the doorway would also double Himmler over. But the small man held firm and only gritted his teeth at the onslaught of inner-ear sound and minute vibrations.

Below, the charge of electricity burst into the chain and it stiffened to a straight line of two rows as electricity flowed through it.

Thomsen paced to the side of the Reichsführer and leaned down. “The magnets inside the door frame will be charged and the chain, or what we call the particle accelerator, will conform to its designed structure.”

The final charge was sent through the accelerator. Suddenly there was a bright explosion of light as the circular chain rounded and became taut as the force of the magnets inside the doorway distributed magnetism to equal parts of the chain, which brought the expensive links to attention, forming a perfect circle inside the rectangular doorway. As Himmler watched, the interior of the man-made circle started to shimmer. It was as if an invisible wave moved the very air around inside the accelerator as it hung magically in suspended form in a perfect circle where the opposing magnets held it at bay.

“We are forming a man-made current. Just as if we have shot an arrow underwater, the particle accelerator has now forced ions into the doorway. We are seeing this shimmering simply because as of this moment the current and flow have no place to go, or to lock on to, so the entire assault of our time and space remains contained in this laboratory. Start the revolution, please.”

The magnets started to rotate, and then spun faster and faster until there was nothing but a trail of blue light forming the brightest of flares any of the men had ever witnessed. The RPMs increased as even more power from the Möhne Dam was used. The sheer power was pulsing energy into the surrounding air. The chain connected fast, and then released the opposing magnets to the next in line, which made the speed reach incalculable levels. This same design would be used in particle accelerators in the future.

“We are now going to send our signal into the doorway.” Thomsen again spoke into the intercom. “Go to full revolutions on the particle accelerator!”

Below the circular chain of composite material, steel, plastic, and ceramic was spinning at the speed of sound, which was bringing men to their knees. Himmler grimaced and took hold of the arms of his chair to fight the nausea filling his throat. Thomsen didn’t have to explain that this was the closest man had ever come to achieving the speed of light.

A blue haze started to fill the interior of the accelerator as the RPMs continued to multiply. For three hundred kilometers around the Möhne Dam, lights dimmed and transformers blew in almost every town and city. Lightbulbs and fixtures exploded inside the laboratory, making men duck and technicians smile as they felt the power of the very universe strike deep inside the landscape of Germany.

“Now we are near to the power we need,” Thomsen said excitedly.

“For what, Herr Professor?”

“To make the connection to the dismantled gate of two years ago, Herr Reichsführer.”

God, Himmler thought to himself, this maniac may have actually produced a viable plan for the second-most powerful man in Germany. “You may proceed as soon as you are ready.”

“Bring in the Traveler,” Thomsen said as his eyes went to a small doorway in the far wall as it opened, and two white-coated lab technicians escorted a frightened girl into the lab. She was so emaciated Himmler thought she would collapse.

“Our subject for the test is twelve-year-old Moira Mendelsohn, she is from—”

“I do not wish to know the Jew’s name, or anything else about her for that matter, Professor.”

“Yes, yes, of course, you have my apologies. Needless to say the Traveler tested at a one hundred forty-seven IQ. Her brother tested only a few points less. Thus far the Traveler has performed magnificently. Now with the guarantee of her return by her brother’s very presence.”

Himmler watched below as the thin and sickly girl was led to the front of the doorway. They had already placed earphones on her small head to protect her from the audio assault element of the test. Her clothing was tattered and worn as Thomsen wanted the Reichsführer to see that nothing special outside of headphone protection was needed. Her clothing was the same gray rags she had on when she had been transferred from Bergen-Belsen a month before. All the observers could see the yellow Star of David badly stitched to her gray dress. The small scabs on her head from lice infestation from the camps were hidden as well as possible so as not to offend the sensitivities of Himmler, who was widely known for his weak stomach when it came to observing the men, women, and children he had so ruthlessly rounded up. He could talk a good game, but when it came to facing the things he did he was more on the shy side according to British and American intelligence sources. The girl was shaking and quietly crying. The task she was to perform had been explained to her and would be no different from the last test that she performed flawlessly. To ensure the girl’s cooperation, a small boy was also escorted into the room and placed into a chair. The doe-eyed male was no more than eight years of age.

“I was led to believe that there would only be one test subject,” the man from Krupp Steel inquired as he saw the tears in both the boy’s and the girl’s eyes as they finally saw each other. It looked as if the girl tried to shrug the hand of the technician away in an attempt to go to comfort the frightened child.

“The boy is not a test subject, sir. He is what we would describe as insurance.”

The dawning of understanding illuminated the industrialist’s features.

“This was the Reichsführer’s idea, after all, we do want certain guarantees that our wayward Traveler steps back into the first doorway and returns. A precaution we have taken since she does know this is the final test with her involvement. After her usefulness is at an end she will be returned to Bergen-Belsen for”—he looked briefly at Himmler—“whatever her fate will be.”

No more needed to be said. Thomsen was proving he could be as brutal as Himmler himself.

“Start the signal!” Thomsen cried excitedly.

The doorway was acting like a centrifuge, so powerful in its rotation that the frightened girl shied away from the forces assaulting her. The technician patted the young girl on the shoulder and then stepped away. Suddenly a burst of sound penetrated the noise from below and held steady.

“Tone is sounding and is now in active search mode.”

Himmler grimaced as the piercing sound of the signal assaulted his ears even through the earplugs. The girl went to her knees as the pain of the signal coupled with the spinning accelerator knocked the senses from her small body.

“We have signal bounce back! Yes, we have a return!”

Thomsen smiled as he knew the two doorways were talking to each other. The space between times had been breached.

“The Jew Einstein was right all along.”

Thomsen smiled down at Himmler. That Jew, as he called him, was the most brilliant theorist Thomsen had ever studied. Himmler and Hitler were fools for chasing these people off like they had; science would not benefit from their action. He went to the intercom.

“Stand!” he said loudly. The girl looked up from her sitting position and back into the glass at the face of the man ordering her to stand. She started to rise but fell back.

“Perhaps you are not strong enough? Your brother perhaps is a better candidate?”

The girl shot a defiant look up at Thomsen. She angrily raised herself from the floor of the lab. With hatred still burning in her green eyes she finally turned and stared into the swirling bands of color that whirlpooled inside the Wellsian Doorway.

“Displacement event seven commencing at zero zero thirty-two hours and fifteen seconds. Commence test.”

After a last defiant look back at the observers, the Traveler looked over at her frightened brother and mouthed the words, “I’ll come back for you,” and with that, Moira Mendelsohn stepped into the hurricane force of the doorway.

Himmler stood aghast as the girl stepped into the maelstrom of the doorway. He tensed when he saw the young woman stop just beyond the initial frame of the apparatus. Her body was still visible and the Reichsführer could see the frightened girl freeze as the initial force of the Wellsian Doorway snatched her breath away and pulled at the rags of her clothing, sending her ill-fitting dress up and around her thin body.

The Traveler felt the closely cropped hair on her head stand straight up. The tattered woolen sweater she wore was pulled so tightly to her skin due to static electricity that her breathing became restricted. Her heart started a rapid palpitation and her stomach was quickly relieved of the thin gruel of potato soup she had been fed earlier. She felt the wetness of her own discarded meal as the heat of the doorway caught and soon evaporated the material. Still, the wind inside the gate increased as the girl forced her body forward with a feeling of weightlessness.

She felt the sandlike blast of particles as they penetrated her skin and felt the deep burn as they passed through her sinew and bone. Her ears started to bleed and seep from the earphones she wore for protection. The signal from the initiating doorway was so close and strong it ruptured her eardrums. This final test was far more powerful in scope than the previous one.

The Traveler bent over as the agony of the assault made her feel as if her very bones were being pulverized from the inside. Then she fell forward as the force of the corresponding signal from the target doorway pushed back against the first. The connection between worlds had been made. Moira Mendelsohn, a twelve-year-old from the simple streets of the small Polish village of Triske, now forever known as the Traveler, felt the onrush of the last order to be sent from Germany — full power that was sent through the blue diamonds and the RPMs of the electromagnetic field increased a thousandfold. The girl felt the agony of heat coupled with a pulsing of the electrical assault. She opened her eyes at the last second before her body could take no more. She saw the other side of the doorway. It was calm, dimly lit, and peaceful. She blessedly felt her legs give out and she fell forward.

The outline of the girl vanished. Himmler’s eyes widened as her body became part of the swirling greens and blues of the electromagnetic storm.

“She’s through, she has made the transit!” Thomsen said loudly. “Cut power to fifty percent,” he said as he saw five technicians run forward with fire extinguishers when they heard the power being curtailed to the machine. “Prepare one-way communication link,” he finished as he walked over to the small radio set that was connected to the main floor of the lab.

The young girl felt the assault on her body and senses ease as her mind started to unscramble. Her stomach heaved once more and the last of her evening supper emptied onto the cold concrete floor. She rose to her elbows and wiped her mouth. Then she quickly remembered where she was and frantically looked back and saw that the doorway was there and still open. The vortex of light and swirling particles obscured the other side but she knew that they were there, waiting to see if the experiment worked. She felt the evilness of the eyes that waited impatiently. She started to stand on shaky, weakened legs.

The room she was in was the exact double of the one in which she had just left. She actually had figured out after the initial test more than a week before that it was in fact the very same room she had left behind. The laboratory was empty of the advanced displacement equipment and the immense space was sparse of light. Only the doorway’s frame that held the corresponding signal remained. Spiderwebs blew in the onslaught of wind still being produced by the partially opened doorway. She took a tentative step away from the swirling vortex and felt the ease of pressure. Her head stopped aching and her bones felt as if they had been resolidified somehow. Her stomach settled and she realized that she was thirsting to death. It was as if every bit of moisture had been sucked from her body. Then she saw through the swirling and flashing of the doorway behind her a large water bottle with folded paper cones beside it. She approached cautiously. Her hand reached for the dust-covered clear bottle but froze when the voice came through the doorway.

“Yes, you are thirsty, drink, we have very little time. You must be rehydrated before your return.”

The voice echoed in the emptiness of the deserted bunker as if an ancient god were talking to her from Olympus. Her heart leaped as the voice of Thomsen filled the girl with dread. Her hand lowered, forsaking the bottle.

“Ah, yes, the thought that will always come to the trapped animal — the brief glimpse of escape.”

The girl felt as if her thoughts had been read. She swallowed as her eyes tried to pierce the round circle of the doorway.

“But you have not thought this through, my dear. You were chosen for your above-average intelligence by our benefactor, the Reichsführer, and also because you come with built-in assurances of cooperation.”

Moira realized at that moment that which she so readily forgot — her small brother who was still in their evil hands. She tentatively reached for the water. She unfolded the paper cone and then uncorked the bottle and poured. She drank until she thought she would burst. She had no choice. When she finished she placed the bottle down beside the others she had drank on the other test nights. There were three empty bottles.

“Now, the proof that the Reichsführer requires is on the table, pick anyone, they are all the same.”

The girl saw the lined-up newspapers. The headlines of each were covered by a thick layer of dust. She reached for the first newspaper. She blew the dust free and read. She knew very little of the English language but Moira knew instinctively that the headline was not a good one. “American Fortress of Corregidor Falls to Japs.” She retrieved the paper with the scrawled signature of Heinrich Himmler next to the bold print and turned toward the doorway.

Squadron Commander Gibson brought the giant Lancaster to within fifteen feet of the surface of the reservoir as his assault charged through the front door of the German antiaircraft defenses. This was the second run against the dam. He had braved the first just to make sure that the level of the waterline had not gone down as they had to skip their payload over the two anti-torpedo nets that spanned the waterway in front of the enormous dam.

“Speed, two hundred thirty knots. Altitude, sixty feet, Gibby, for God’s sake let her go!” the copilot screamed as the Lancaster bore in on the dam’s angled facing.

Gibson knew they only had one shot at this. If the attack failed the industrial might of Germany would be unaffected, and the research involving the development of hard water would continue.

“I hate to say this, but we’re so bloody close to the water we see fish!” came the voice of the starboard machine gunner as the Lancaster roared in, climbing to sixty feet over the shining waters of the Möhne.

“Now!” Gibson cried as he saw the white face of the dam grow like a wall of destruction in his windscreen.

“Upkeep away!” called the bombardier.

The cylindrical Upkeep hit the water just as Gibson pulled up on the stick with all the strength he and his copilot could muster. It felt as though the twin-tailed bomber was going to strike the top of the Möhne Dam but at the last moment the great bomber cleared it by a mere six feet. The force of the bombers’ wash knocked over five German soldiers on the walkway as it passed. The Lancaster climbed free as the five-foot-long, barrel-like bomb started its magical skipping action toward the dam. It bounced over the line cable of the first torpedo net and then the second. There was nothing to stop it from striking the dam now.

Six times the Bouncing Baby Boy struck the water and then rose back into the dark night sky. Soon the sheer weight of the giant bomb slowed her advance to the point that the nine-thousand-pound bomb was only traveling at 100 kilometers per hour when it struck the reservoir side of the dam. It hit with a force that knocked more German soldiers from their feet as they scrambled to watch the attack. Then gravity took hold and the Upkeep settled and quickly sank into the frigid waters of the Möhne reservoir. It sank, spinning and bumping against the reinforced concrete and then crawled along the face as it was designed to do with the backspin of the launch. It fell directly where it was supposed to fall — right to the base of the fragile system.

Himmler watched and waited. He never suspected the subject of the test, the Traveler, would fail to return. After all, as long as she had the hope of saving her brother she would finish what the experiment called for.

“I assume you have retrieved the evidence of your travel, so return to the doorway,” Thomsen said into the microphone as he watched the anticipation on the Reichsführer’s face. “Charge the doorway, one hundred and ten percent power.”

The doorway started to spin at a fantastic speed and the sparks of color returned. The connection was made once more. Soon Himmler would have the proof he needed. His grand escape plan was now a viable option to his hanging at the hands of his enemies, the allies.

“Power output at one hundred and fifteen percent!” the technician called into the loud void of the laboratory.

They felt the earth beneath the bunker roll as if the ground was made of water instead of bedrock. Heinrich Himmler’s eyes widened in shock as the doorway erupted in flame and sparks as her emergency backup systems were knocked offline.

“Mein Gott, what has happened?” Thomsen cried as he felt the first ripple of earth movement.

As for Himmler, he knew exactly what had happened. He had been warned of possible RAF assaults on the power-producing systems of the war effort.

“No!” he said loudly as the world around him turned to electrical flame.

The Upkeep traveled to a depth of 112 feet, three feet farther than the designers wanted, but this failure actually ensured the success of the mission. Just as the Upkeep hit the bottom of the dam nearest the last of the solid granite masonry blocks where they joined clay and earthen bank, the shock wave as the hydrostatic fuse detonated the nine thousand pounds of explosive in the barrel-like weapon.

At first there was little reaction other than the giant waterspout above the dam’s upper superstructure. The wash inundated the German guards running about in a panic. Then the real magic started to happen as Mother Nature started to take an interest in the game. The initial cracks in the dam were small, but as the explosion reached out from the base, the return of water to that empty pressure void slammed into the wall of concrete at over a thousand miles per hour. It cracked. The sizable void traveled like a snake at maximum speed as it raced up the waterside of the dam. It hit the top and the first of the five-thousand-pound chunks of wall started to cascade into the small village below, whose residents had already started to run for their lives.

The Möhne Dam and the surrounding countryside had only minutes of life left to them.

“Get me my power back!” Thomsen said as a shower of sparks cascaded to the floor, making even Himmler duck low.

“Get me to my car!” Himmler said as calmly as he could as he was pulled by his security team from the glass-enclosed room. His eyes fell on a panicked Thomsen as he tried to find out what was wrong. The fool didn’t even realize his precious project had been attacked. Thomsen’s eyes showed fear as he knew then that his life and his project were done. He would never survive the Reichsführer’s wrath.

The lights flickered as the SS men cleared the room and ran for the elevator while they still had power to operate the lifts.

Himmler turned to two of his SS security men. “Remove Thomsen and only his most essential personnel. The rest need to be silenced, including the Traveler and her sibling, if she returns.”

The two men turned and made their way to the laboratory below and started to pull Thomsen from the room amid his cries to help stop the catastrophe to his experiment. Three of his assistants were also pulled out of the lab as others used fire extinguishers to try to stem the flow of the disaster.

Before anyone knew what was happening, bullets ripped into the laboratory below. Technicians froze at their consoles as their world exploded into chaos. Bullets ripped into their screens and then themselves as SS machine guns opened up from the stairwell in the far wall.

Thomsen and his three assistants were pushed toward the elevators. The second was waiting with an SS soldier. Professor Thomsen was hustled toward the lift. Suddenly he felt the large glass window blow inward and was inundated with shrapnel. The largest piece lodged into his thorax and jugular veins. His last view of his precious Wellsian Doorway was of men with weapons destroying it and his people. His last dimming vision was of the small brother of the Traveler as he ran away in fear. He wondered if the boy would ever make it out alive. Thomsen died with many regrets, but the boy’s fate was not one of them.

Before the murderers of the many technicians of the doorway could reach the elevator, exploding water from the destroyed Möhne Dam was forced from the conduit tunnel. The furious flow of water burst forth like the rush of an oncoming train. The laboratory started filling fast with water from the collapsing dam.

The girl saw the explosions with the view she had of the doorway before it collapsed. Her eyes had found the frightened visage of her baby brother as the world she knew vanished before her eyes. She reached up at the spinning vortex of color as their eyes met and that was when she saw the frightened face of her brother turn to shock as the bullets ripped into the floor near him. Then the doorway closed forever and she was left with her hand reaching for nothing but the blackness that was the bunker. Moira Mendelsohn collapsed to the floor with the newspaper clutched in her hand.

Three hours later the young woman who had become the first time traveler in the history of the world broke open the door that led to the clean fresh air of the outdoors. It smelled wonderful. She looked at the stars above and took a deep breath.

The Traveler vanished into the Wellsian Doorway on that dark night back in 1943—and then disappeared again into a war-torn world of 1942—almost one year before she vanished the first time.

The Wellsian Doorway was closed and would not be opened again for close to a century.