Inception

(Author's note) I want to thank Lucien-Al for all his work in editing this story. This story is better because of all his tireless and mind-numbing work. He and I plan to soon collaborate on a new story together, so you might want to look for that in the future. Thanks.

*****

September 2017

In some respects, Building 43B looked similar every other building at the East Plains Federal facility, though they were engineered and constructed in various styles and for different purposes, they appeared, in a word, institutional. The government facility, now mostly vacant and neglected, encompassed more than six hundred acres of valuable real estate out on the north shore of Long Island, and it had been a fixture there since World War One.

Between the buildings, like a checkerboard pattern, the facility was covered with great lawns and equally enormous parking lots, but now the buildings, parking lots and even the grounds were a dilapidated vestige of a time when the facility had been a hive of innovation.

Behind building 43B, parked near a large concrete loading ramp, was a white commercial van with the name, "Aldrich", emblazoned on the front doors. From a distance, it didn't appear to be occupied, but on closer examination, one could tell that there were three men occupying the vehicle.

All three men had their heads buried in their phones. Nick LaFever, the supervisor, was in the passenger seat scanning the morning stock futures, City Blue was the driver behind the wheel, and David Reznick was sprawled out on a bench seat behind them.

These men were no strangers to Building 43B having worked inside it several times over the last few years. The building had been dedicated to mostly lab space, though not the mad scientist type of labs with beakers and test tubes of boiling chemicals, but instead electronics labs with machines like antiquated data processing machines or ancient supercomputers.

At the back of the building was a huge area, similar to an aircraft hanger, with twenty-foot-high ceilings and windows high up on the bare brick walls so as to let in the ambient light. Being that this area was adjacent to the loading dock, it was now used for storage, and that was where the three men would be working that morning.

"I'm going out for a smoke," City Blue said and stepped out of the van. Smoking was banned on the facility, but City Blue knew he was safe behind the building, even if there were someone around to see him light up.

"Don't get lost. It's almost time," Nick said irritated.

"Relax," City Blue yelled back equally irritated. "The truck ain't even here yet."

Of course, City Blue was not his real name. That was his stage name, as Nick liked to say. Nick had met Willie Brown and David Reznick on his very first day of work, but in short time Willie made it known that he'd rather be called City Blue.

"Whatever," David had said, while smiling at the look on Nick's face, after City had made his point and left. Nick had the feeling that David had heard it all before.

Willie's point of view was that working at East Plains was just his day job. On weekends he was DJ City Blue performing at some of the more hopping clubs around.

"You know," David said later that week. "I might want to start being called, Star."

"Star," City Blue said annoyed by what he took as an affront. "What the fuck for?"

"You know, as in Star of David," David said laughing at his own joke. "If you can have a fake name, why can't I?"

Nick often caught City sleeping in the van, because he was out most nights, and David, well David just didn't give a shit. He worked purely to keep himself in weed and beer.

Neither City nor David were model employees of the Aldrich Corporation. In fact, they were so bad that Nick was often afraid for his job. They mostly argued amongst themselves over who did less work, while Nick would tell anyone who cared to listen that neither of them was worth one El Salvadorian.

Once, as a summer job during college, he worked for a landscaper, and most of the crew was El Salvadorians. He had never seen, then or since, men work so hard and for so little pay.

While they were sitting there Nick checked the futures again.

"How's the portfolio?" David asked.

"Okay, I guess. The market's been kind of flat lately."

"Maybe I should ask you for some tips?"

"Don't," Nick said grinning to himself. "Stock tips are like asses. Everyone has one, and they usually stink. Though my mom did alright."

"Your mom?"

"Yeah, before I was born someone gave her a couple of tips and fortunately she listened."

"Did alright?"

"Alright? Nick said with enthusiasm. "In the eighties she bought Microsoft. Then in ninety-seven, she bought Amazon, and we all know how that turned out."

"Wait," David said lying on his back in the back with his hand under his head. "How did that guy know about Amazon back in the eighties"

"I don't know. But my mom swears that's the truth, and she has the portfolio to prove it."

"Holy shit," David said sitting up. "So your mom is sitting on quite a bundle?"

"Maybe, maybe not. My mom never really talks about the money. She paid for my college, though. She actually has an advisor that does all of the legwork."

Nick stayed silent for a few moments, his mind on other things and then he read the number on the side of the building. "Forty-Three B. I think this is the building where she used to work."

"Who?"

"My mom. Come on David, keep up with the conversation."

"Wait. What? Your mom used to work at East Plains?" David asked with some amusement.

"Yeah. Right after she graduated college she became an assistant to some scientist."

"Oh yeah," David said amused by all of this. He had a vision in his head of Nick's mom, Anne, dressed in a white lab coat and little else.

"Yeah, that's why we live so close."

"That's right," David laughed. "You live with your mom."

"So do you asshole," Nick shot back.

"Yeah, but I'm a slacker," David laughed. "You said so yourself."

Nick smiled and then pulled a clipboard out of the courier bag he carried to most of these jobs. He fanned through some inventory lists and then handed the clipboard to David.

David's job would be to search through the piles of dusty, dirty equipment in the warehouse. Each item, down to the smallest stapler, had a metal inventory sticker on them with a unique number printed on it. Find the sticker with the right number and they could pull the exact machinery that was being requested, that's if the sticker was still attached after many years.

The trouble was trying to discover what to look for, for many times the scientific name for a particular item was baffling.

"What-da-we-got?" David asked stringing the words together as if they were one.

As David sat up straight and took the clipboard, one could tell immediately that he was a big man. His long brown hair was unkempt, and on his chin, he sported what most people would call a goatee, but was really a Van Dyck. His clothes, too, were disheveled and he typically came to work in jeans and an old dark colored tee shirt emblazoned with the name of some rock group.

"Same as always, Dave," Nick said in a bored tone. "Some sort of machinery. We do the same thing every day. They send us lists of machinery, we hunt down those machines, and ship out the shit, except when we have to dismantle it."

"I still don't get it," David continued to complain. "Why do we always have to dismantle this shit."

"I've told you a dozen times," Nick said frustrated. "Because the government doesn't want to auction off machinery that might be sensitive, or dangerous. They assume that if we dismantle a death ray gun before the auction, then people who bid on this shit won't know it's a dismantled death ray gun."

"But that's stupid," David argued. "You think the people who are buying this shit aren't aware?"

"Dave, I don't give a fuck, and the only reason that you give a fuck is because you don't want to do any work."

"Yeah," David said with a smile. "Pretty much."

City opened the door and shouted into the van, "Truck's coming."

Nick looked up and saw a big straight truck coming around the back of the building. In the cab were Oliver and Matt, two more of his crew. Their job was to cart off the machinery that Nick, City, and David pulled out from amongst the piles of old equipment that had been amassed in the building of the East Plains Government Facility.

"Come on let's go," Nick said. "Time to get to work. And David, don't forget the tools, you tool."

"Yeah, yeah," David answered. "Wait, take the clipboard. I can't hold all this shit."

East Plains was once a hub for some of the government's most secret projects. It was out on Long Island about forty miles from the city. From the Thirties up until the turn of the century, people worked in these building, and turned out some of the most important discoveries of both World Wars, and after that the Cold War, but for political and economic reasons the work had since been moved to other parts of the country, mainly California and Texas. The Aldrich Corporation was the government's agent in charge of dismantling the facility.

David now searched through the flotsam and jetsam of decades of government work for the little metal tags that were stuck on each object. Occasionally he would yell, "Got one," and it was City's job to pull that particular object out to the center of the room, and then Oliver and Matt would load it on pallets, and then with a pallet jack, load it onto their truck.

It was easily a job that two men could handle, but Aldrich was billing the government for four, plus a supervisor, and so they all had a job.

"Got that highlighted one," David yelled from a corner of the warehouse. "But it's too big. We'll need a couple of guys to move it."

Nick, City, Oliver, and Matt made their way through a maze of equipment to where they last heard David's voice, and as they did they could see David standing by a machine that looked like a combination 1950's supercomputer, and an old glass and steel telephone booth.

"What the fuck is that?" Nick said as they neared the thing.

"Damn if I know," David replied.

"I don't think we're going to be able to lift that thing," City opined.

"Did you guys bring a forklift?" Nick asked looking at Oliver and Matt.

"They didn't tell us to," Oliver offered in his defense.

"Well is there one in the building?" Nick asked, frustrated.

"Not likely," Matt interjected. "All the forklifts are over at the auto pool."

"How long will it take you to get one?" Nick asked with heightened frustration.

"Well, we have to drive back to the auto pool, sign one out, and then load it on the truck. By then it'll be lunch time," Oliver said, his tone and attitude frustrating Nick even more.

"We can't afford that sort of a delay. The bosses are already bitching at me because we're behind," Nick yelled slamming his hand on the large machine.

"Oh, fuck the bosses," City said and rolled his eyes. "They don't know how long it takes to get this shit done."

"What are you talking about?" Nick said incredulously. " Every day you all come to work late, and then you need two cups of coffee and three cigarettes before you'd even think about getting started."

"Hey, don't get up in my face about this shit. It ain't my fault they didn't bring a forklift," City said defending their lack of industry.

"Okay, okay," Nick started to calm down some. "We need to take it apart by hand so we can manage the pieces separately."

"Well that might not be so easy," Matt, who hardly ever said anything, spoke up.

"Why? What the fuck's wrong now?" Nick barked, his tone thick with exasperation.

"Well, did anybody else notice that the power is on?"

"What are you talking about?" David said. "I don't even see a power cord, never mind it being plugged in."

"No. He's right," Oliver agreed. "The lights are on."

They all looked down, and sure enough, they could see three colored lights aglow on the machine's main console; one green, one red and one yellow. None of the men had noticed the lights before.

"Man, how could that be," City questioned what they all were witnessing. "That sucker has to be fifty years old. Ain't no batteries lasting no fifty years."

"No. It says on the manifest that this machine was first inventoried in nineteen-eighty," David corrected as he looked over the paperwork.

"Still," Nick said. "City's right. There weren't any batteries back in the eighties that can last this long."

"Maybe it's nuclear," Oliver said with a half grin.

"It's not nuclear," Nick scoffed.

"I ain't touching that thing," David said with some concern. "It's nuclear."

"It ain't nuclear," Nick said losing his grip on his emotions.

"I ain't touching it," City echoed, and then Oliver and Matt both threw up their hands, with Matt actually taking a few steps back as if those few feet would protect him from a nuclear reaction.

"Fine," Nick said giving in. "I'll disassemble it. You guys just sit around and watch, just like you always do."

"No need to get so huffy about it," David said enjoying Nick's exasperation. "It ain't our fault it's nuclear."

With that, Nick walked over to the toolbox, and then with the box in his hand, he walked over to the machine.

"I might as well start on this phone booth type thing," Nick said as he opened the steel and glass door. He stepped into the booth and started to inspect where it was secured to the rest of the machine.

"Nick, you better not touch that thing," David barked out a warning. "It's liable to vaporize you."

"It's not going to vaporize me," Nick dismissed the idea, though briefly as he stood inside the glass enclosure he got a little claustrophobic. "I think I see where it's attached. It's got some kind of lever here that's affixing it."

"Man, you are crazy," City said and he too started to back away.

"Oh stop. It's probably some kind of phone they used as a hotline or something. The worst thing that could happen is that I get a bill for calling Russia," Nick laughed.

He moved over to the black lever and started to twist it. At first, it wouldn't budge, but then using all his might, the thing started to crank clockwise.

"Careful," David warned, and then there was a flash of light inside the booth, and when it was gone, so was Nick.

"Holy Shit," City yelled. "That fuckin' thing vaporized him."

"I told him not to touch it," David commented as if he were a schoolboy in the principal's office. "I told him it was nuclear."

To Nick, it looked much like one of those vortex's that they show in the movies to denote a wormhole or some other kind of phenomenon. It sucked him up, and all he could see was the brightly lit walls of this vortex. The colors were spectacular, none being primary but a mix, with steep gradations in hue.

In the end, the vortex spat him out right back into the hangar storage room of building 43B, depositing him, covered in a substance that wasn't perspiration, onto the concrete floor.

After a few minutes, Nick was able to shake off his stupor, and he realized that he was surrounded by at least a half dozen strangers, two dressed in military security uniforms, and those two were in combat stance with weapons trained on him.

"Who are you?" Someone asked as Nick tried to make sense of it all. "And where did you come from?" Nick finally realized that it was one of the military guards that were barking at him.

"Who the hell are you?" He asked right back. "And where is my crew?"

"Your crew? You're not alone?" The other security guard asked. "Did anyone see anyone else?"

The rest of the people, mostly men in lab coats, stared at him as if he were an alien and shook their heads in dumb silence.

"What's going on here? Where is the machine I was working on, and what is this shit all over me?" Nick asked trying like hell to figure out what had happened to him.

"What machine?" The guard said starting to lose his patience, though so was Nick.

"The big grey machine with all the lights and knobs on it. The one with the phone booth in front."

"Phone booth?" Said an Asian man in a lab coat. "You mean this machine over here?"

Nick looked off to the side of the room where the man was pointing, and against a far wall was the exact machine, though it now had a place of prominence in the room.

"When did you move it there?"

"You were working on that, the LV-426?"

"I don't know what it's called, but yes."

"When?"

"Just now. We have to dismantle it, me and my crew."

"Put your weapons down," the Asian man said to the guards, sensing something that the others didn't. "I need to talk to this man."

"Are you sure Doc?" Said one of the security guards

"Pretty sure. But stand by, if you will."

"Sure Doc. Whatever you say." The two guards then slowly holstered their weapons.

"Let me ask you something," said the man they called Doc. "What year is this?"

"What?" Nick answered wondering what sort of question that was.

"The year. What year is it?"

"What are you talking about? It's two thousand seventeen."

And with that everyone in the room gasped.

Later, in one of the building's offices, Nick was sitting at a desk as a vaguely familiar and very attractive young blond, wearing a see-through animal print blouse and with hair done up in a voluminous style, handed him a towel and a cup of coffee.

In front of him on the desk, a newspaper had just been laid out for him to inspect by one of the lab coated men.

Nick had checked the date on the masthead and it read 1989. The newspaper was in pristine condition and not the least discolored. Either this was a brand-new paper or someone was going through a lot of trouble to convince him that it was new.

"Let me get this straight, you're the inventor of this LV-426?" Nick asked the Asian Doctor.

"That's right," said Doc. "Though I'm not sure invent is the correct phraseology." The doctor was very westernized, slightly chubby, and what little hair he had on his head, was white.

"And you're name is Doctor Chopra?"

"Yes. Yes."

"And this is nineteen eighty-nine?"

"I'm sorry to say, but yes."

"I don't understand."

"It's all very simple. LV-426 is a machine we are working on. It is not specifically a time machine, per se, but we are using it to test the B theory of time."

"Okay, Doc. I'm a college grad, but I never heard of any B theory of time?"

"The B-theory of time," interrupted one of the lab-coated men who had been standing in the wings. "Is the name given to one of two positions regarding the philosophy of time. B-theorists argue that the flow of time is an illusion, that the past, present, and future are equally real, and that time is tenseless. This would mean that temporal becoming is not an objective feature of reality."

"Precisely," Chopra agreed.

"Again, I'm lost," Nick said shaking his head.

"Remember what he said. B theorists believe time is an illusion, and if time is an illusion, my theory is that we can jump from one time to the next simply by using the correct principles," Chopra said as if he were talking about going to the supermarket.

"And LV-426 does that?"

"We were hoping it would, but we weren't prepared for it to send us someone back from the future."

"Neither was I, Doc. Neither was I."

"Oh dear," Chopra said with a bit of concern in his voice.

"So can you send me back?" Nick asked hopefully.

"I don't think so. No. I know we can't. I've been trying to send a chronograph from one moment in time to the next, but without success. I guess in the future that's not the situation."

"I wasn't trying to travel in time. Like I said, we were sent to dismantle the thing."