The Time Folder: Time Travel Is The Easy Part: The Guild of Travelers, #1

By M. D. Pau

In a world transformed by a pandemic, genetic engineering dominates, and time travel is a vital necessity.
Join an unexpected hero on a mission beyond imagination where science and God's plan intertwine across Italy through the ages, and discover a future where every moment is a leap into the unknown.

 

Jay's career as a time-traveling DNA thief teeters on the brink of disaster. With a knack for botching missions and a series of failed heists behind him, Jay's future looks bleak. His last hope? An enigmatic individual from the past, possessing unusual genes that could be his ticket to redemption.

 

Amidst this turmoil, Jay's sentient ship – helmed by a captain with a rebellious agenda – threatens their very existence. The captain's audacious plan to fold the stream of time, aiming to reunite with a long-lost love, could unravel the fabric of reality, endangering the Collective and everyone aboard. As the clock ticks perilously, Jay is thrust into a race against time to thwart catastrophe, navigate uncharted emotional territories, and reclaim his standing with the powerful Administration.

 

Set in the backdrop of Venice through the ages, The Time Folder melds time travel science fiction with genetic engineering, Italian culture, history, and lost love into part one of this captivating series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Purpose Ink
• Release date: Jan 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224769544

Book preview

The Time Folder

Time Travel is the easy part

M. D. Pau

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Purpose Ink

Copyright © 2016,2020,2024 by Purpose Ink

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ALSO BY M.D. PAU

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THE GUILD OF TRAVELERS series:

TIME BOUND – BOOK 2

THE TIME MAKER – BOOK 3

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Short stories:

THE LAST HUNT

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The price of anything

is the amount of life you exchange for it.

H.D. Thoureau

Contents

Prologue

From the Revolutionary Archives

The Laws

1.Jay

2.Jay

3.EOS

4.Marcus

5.Thalia

6.Claudia

7.The Fisherman

8.Jay

9.Jay

10.The Architect

11.Jay

12.Aurelia

13.Aurelia

14.EOS

15.Jay

16.Jay

17.Jay

18.Jay

19.Aurelia

20.EOS

21.Marcus

22.Jay

23.Aurelia

24.Aurelia

25.Jay

26.Aurelia

27.Jay

28.Aurelia

29.Jay

30.Jay

31.EOS/Alice

32.Thalia

33.Jay

34.Aurelia

35.Marcus

36.Jay

37.Aurelia

38.Jay

39.Jay

40.Jay

41.Aurelia

42.EOS/Alice

43.Aurelia

44.EOS/Alice

45.Jay

46.Jay

47.EOS/Alice

48.Epilogue

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Author's Notes

Prologue

I mpossible.

Dr. Thalia Rasmussen, the chief scientist of what was left of the CDC bioterrorism unit, let the realization of her final defeat sink in. Her last-ditch efforts to stop the contagion had failed. The orange bubbles on her screen showing the progression of the disease had tripled in size. All locations reporting to the CDC central database had reached critical numbers. I’ve never seen anything move this fast. Thousands of infected people would soon overwhelm hospitals throughout the world, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

Australia too, her assistant Nova added, rubbing her eyes, bloodshot by the harrowing last forty-eight hours. I was hoping they could keep it out. They sealed their borders four weeks ago.

The continent had been isolated since the deaths of the first patients reported in Manila. But just like the U.K., it now showed multiple sites of infection.

I know. It didn’t work.

It’s been, like, what, three months since patient zero? Nova replied, pushing away from the workstation. At least, the official zero…

Don’t start that again, please. Thalia wasn’t in the mood to be patronized. The weight of what posterity would likely define as the worst pandemic in history often paralyzed her mind. Still, she had to keep herself focused if they had any chance to survive. The future of humanity was anything but certain at this point.

—We shouldn’t have released the patch. A functioning FDA never would have it let through.

Well, that ship has sailed.

The breakthrough ENGen’s mRNA therapeutic nasal spray had all but eliminated the H2N3 flu virus in less than four years, earned international accolades, and put Nova and herself in contention for the next Nobel prize. So much so that the phase one studies at ENGen’s locations in Florida and Montana were stopped when all cohorts showed a hundred percent protective response, pushing the treatment along the approval pipeline at blazing speed. Every study patient who had received even a single dose of their product remained free of any viral respiratory illness, be it from RSV or rhinovirus, and their immune systems showed an unprecedented boost. Not only did they stay completely healthy throughout the study period, but they also showed complete reversal of any skin lesions previously existing on their bodies. Initial follow-up in-vitro data on Herpes simplex, HIV, and lung cancer cells also confirmed a dramatic response. For the first time, a cure for many types of cancer was not only within reach but inexpensive and with no known side effects.

Thalia’s group had stumbled upon the dramatic discovery while exploring a few samples of Neanderthal DNA, looking for any antibiotic protein that could be medically useful inside the genome of those human progenitors. The results of their search exceeded all expectations. A short gene sequence from chromosome 18, expanded and copied into ENGen’s patented simian mRNA vector, enhanced the recipient’s immune system beyond the power of any known promoter. During the following two flu seasons, the sales of Immuna world-wide had single-handedly pushed ENGen’s stock past the trillion dollar mark, and the ongoing cancer trials pointed to further licensing deals projected to exceed nine trillion.

Thalia Rasmussen had become an overnight celebrity, a sought-after guest in D.C.’s parties, blogs, and late-night shows. But it all had changed just over six months ago with the explosion of this new disease.

Nova dry swallowed, leaning back in her chair. We didn’t have enough data. They should have focused on… physical containment or something. China did.

A lot of good it did them, Thalia replied bitterly. Over six hundred million estimated dead in China alone. Are you suggesting we have anything to do with this?

I don’t know. I mean…

No, we don’t. What about your archeologists? What’s his name?

That’s beside the point.

You went with him on a world tour parading it. The ice man, or whatever.

That thing sat in ice for millennia until the glacier spit it out. We didn’t cause this any more than we caused the planet’s temperature to go up.

The idiot thawed the body of a pre-Neanderthal specimen in a BSL-1 facility. Like this was no big deal. I still don’t know how it didn’t kill you.

The first deaths in D.C, Geneva, and Hong Kong had clustered around the members of the archeologist team, all dying of hemorrhagic fever within two weeks of their return. The virus isolated from their bodies was unknown to modern science. It was a novel pathogen later identified in the lung tissues of the ice man they had discovered.

A month later, the death toll had risen to several thousand in each city and spreading throughout the world despite containment efforts with an R0 value of eighteen and over eighty percent mortality. The WHO declared a world-wide emergency. While millions of Immuna doses were shipped globally, Thalia’s group at ENGen had been one of dozens recruited by Homeland Security to find a treatment. The initial response of the novel virus to the drug had been encouraging, and the treated individuals survived exposure with minimal symptoms. But within two months, it became clear they had all become carriers of the virus, spreading the disease at a much faster rate than the initial lethality had allowed. Then things got worse. A lot worse. The membrane protein produced by the Immuna mRNA patch became a new binding site for the novel virus, which mutated to cause total immune suppression of its hosts. Over ninety percent of infected died due to opportunistic infections within the year.

It was sealed. Sterile, Nova replied.

Nature finds her way.

Don’t give me the chaos lecture. Not now. Nova squeezed her eyes shut.

The deafening wail of alarm sirens exploded in the halls across the compound, alerting the occupants of a lockdown.

The bang of fire barriers slamming shut echoed throughout the building. The emergency lighting poured its eerie, steady pulse on the lab’s polished metal and glassware, now but a reminder of their failure to contain the killer ravaging the globe.

Someone got through, Nova declared.

Emergency alerts flashed across all screens in the lab, confirming her assessment. Overhead speakers blared: Emergency All Personnel: Kaibito facility perimeter has been compromised. All personnel shelter in place. Response units to central command STAT.

The five-mile, no-man zone perimeter of the Arizona desert surrounding the base was protected by Reaper drones with instruction to shoot on sight and a double perimeter of a fifteen-foot high electrified fence. Still, somehow, that had not been enough. After CDC and Homeland Security lost control of the pandemic, the Army had built this facility to coordinate the nation’s last line of defense against the virus. It sheltered the few members of Congress surviving Washington’s carnage and what was left of HSA, NSA, and the few at CDC who had managed to escape. An armed group of three individuals seeking a miracle cure had made it past the drones. Judging by the shots echoing across the building, they had been cornered on the ground floor.

Now what? Nova seemed a lot more calm than Thalia expected, considering the situation. We can’t stay here.

Unit twelve has recirculating ventilation, water, and freeze-dried provisions for three months.

You mean across the quad? For how many people?

If I remember correctly, the full staff. Twenty-three or so, I guess.

How long can we last? If those jarheads downstairs aren’t wearing hazmats, we’re all done.

That’s a good point, Thalia replied, swallowing dryly.

We’re never going to make it, Nova stated with desperate certainty.

That’s six flights of stairs and three hallways, all covered by the same HVAC system, Thalia computed out loud. We’ll be exposed, but we can put on our BL-4 suits.

We’d have to hold our breaths for a quarter-mile in the open.

Thalia stared at the graphs of the first extinction event in history, plotting the probability of human survival at eleven percent.

There may be another way, Nova offered.

What do you mean?

Ginger.

Ginger was Nova’s nickname for ESM-238, one of the tools of Thalia’s lab CRISPR-Cas9 research on multi-drug resistant bacteria, an engineered cooperative phage delivering adenovirus DNA into bacterial production baths, expanding million-fold its payload of Neanderthal-derived antibiotic proteins. I think that’s why I didn’t catch the virus. I had been working on it almost exclusively at the time.

You’re crazy, Thalia replied.

Just hear me out. It’s doable.

We’ve never even tested it on primates.

What’s the alternative? Dying like dogs in this hellhole?

Do you have any idea of the consequences?

Not a clue. But we still have some T5 samples in isolation. We’ve had a complete response with those.

What delivery system?

Alpha-14 simian. We’ll have enough particles to inject IM.

Enough for how many?

Nova stood up, turned on the laminar flow hood, and opened the refrigerator. If we dilute it and stuff it with adjuvants… four to six people.

The timing of their response to the antigen could be decreased by thinning down the solution, possibly making it worthless. And if we don’t?

Enough for you and me.

Thalia evaluated the implications of revealing the existence of a possible treatment to anyone outside that room. Regardless of how effective it was likely to be, it would trigger a stampede.

How long do you think it will take us to reach protective antibody levels?

It should be quick.

You have no idea.

Nova pulled a chair under one of the ventilation grids and ripped a strip of duct tape with her teeth. The doors are locked, and we can barricade them from inside. We tape the vents and stay here for at least 72 hours before exposure. She scanned the cavernous lab. There’s enough air volume here. We should be fine by then.

If it works.

Everyone on base would be exposed to the virus within hours. At least one-third would be dead by the following week. The rest would be maimed, weakened to the point of being unable to walk or perform any physical task, their nervous systems permanently ravaged by the disease.

Thalia’s mind raced to her late mother, the only surviving member of her family, dying alone in a memory care unit in Phoenix, her frail body ravaged, bleeding, and seizing just like all the occupants of her building soon would be. The last time they had a meaningful conversation, the sweet but oblivious woman had again tried to pressure Thalia into giving her some grandchildren. You work too much. When am I going to see some little ones around here?

Sure, Mom, Thalia had replied, fixing her mother’s thinning hair, but, you know, that’s not my thing.

I don’t understand. You’re so pretty! No one special? What about Cole? He’s nice.

Thalia’s only high school boy dating experience had been more than a decade ago, but in her Mom’s mind, it was last week. She wished her mother could have understood Thalia’s life choices didn’t leave room for anything but her driving quest for a decisive contribution to science. The final prize had been within reach, and she had failed. But none of that would matter anymore. Everyone was dead. Or about to be.

This could be their last chance of survival, assuming the virus’s genetic drift eventually smothered it, and the planet could still host human life. In that case, Nova and herself could be among the few educated persons alive tasked with reconstructing an entire civilization.

Thalia steadied herself. In a way, coming through this ordeal was her obligation to science, if not humanity.

Okay, her voice cracked. Let’s do it.

Nova lifted two incubation vials from the refrigerator and drew up the murky liquid with a thin syringe, its content glowing eerily with the flashing emergency lights. She fitted the end with a plastic cap and unsheathed the thin needle.

So, we’re not going to dilute it, Nova asked, more of a statement than a question.

This is not the time for morality.

Nova took off her lab coat, her pink tank top exposing the toned arms of a former beach volleyball pro. She wiped her shoulder with an alcohol swab. We may be the only ones surviving this.

There was no turning back. I’m fine with that.

If, for some reason, I have an anaphylactic response, you’re on your own.

Thalia stepped forward, offering her arm. I’ll go first.

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They did make it out of the lab, albeit barely. After two days of waiting in agonizing isolation on the third floor of the building, the treatment announced itself with unrelenting coughs followed by splitting migraines. It was time to go or risk getting stuck there without food or water to weather the consequences for who knows how long.

Clinging to their lives, Thalia and Nova put on their hazmat suits and trudged away from the relative safety of their lab toward the unknown. To their horror, everyone they encountered on base showed bloodshot eyes and runny noses, clear signs the infection had spread. They scavenged whatever they could from vending machines, and raced across the scorching heat of the courtyard toward the cafeteria and its commercial refrigeration units, reaching unit twelve not an hour too soon. Ginger went to work on their systems with a brutality neither could have predicted. Extreme fevers, shaking tremors, sweats, and searing pain tortured their bodies for more than two weeks as the engineered DNA code spliced into their chromosomes, changing them in ways natural adaptation never could have.

Thankfully, it wasn’t for naught. Over the following weeks, they both survived the exposure to the virus and multiple ones after that.

A few months later, Thalia conceded they were immune to the most lethal disease humanity had ever experienced. However, they were not able to use their knowledge to the benefit of other survivors. Tragically, the lab and all its equipment were lost in a fire that engulfed the research buildings following the attack and burned it all to the ground.

Recreating the vaccine from scratch took longer than the world economies could sustain and control the looming collapse. The markets across the globe crashed through all stops and security protocols. Borders between nations melted away as drug cartels and other organized crime syndicates took over the land, plunging it into a medieval regime of terror. Mercifully, the new world order didn’t last but a year. A second wave of mutant virus wiped most of them out as well.

In a final, providential stroke of luck, Thalia and Nova found shelter in a small community of survivalists deep in the piney woods of East Texas. Over the following years, they worked with the few surviving like-minded people to rebuild a semblance of a scientific community. It took a long time, but eventually they succeeded.

In fact, the passing years had revealed to Thalia the most awe-inspiring side effects of the vaccine. The unexpected consequences of the DNA patch propelled her and Nova into local leadership, and ultimately to the governing seat of the most advanced civilization the globe had ever witnessed.

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A gentle breeze with a sweet scent of citrus flowed through the veranda of Thalia’s mansion overlooking Paal Beach, ruffling the leaves of the pandanus trees surrounding the compound. Admiring her own reflection in the full-length mirror of her spa over fifty years after that fateful day, Thalia smiled. A beautiful setting for the most powerful being on the planet, still living in the same glamorous, slender, thirty-two-year-old body of so long ago.

Perfect.

Ageless.

Her knowing expression hardly wrinkled her complexion.

Nevertheless, it did.

Thalia’s brows knotted. The change had started about five years ago. So far, Nova’s latest genetic stabilizers had kept the terrifying signs of aging at bay. Still, Thalia had noticed the effect of those drugs had lessened significantly. Now, two thin lines creased the smooth skin around her eyes. One gray hair spoiled her otherwise flawless dark mane.

According to the most recent tests, her chromosomal telomeres had begun to shorten again, the speed of their decay increasing with each passing year. Thalia’s best estimates showed that her body and Nova’s would revert to a standard aging sequence within the following decade. Depending on DNA stabilizers made her feel somewhat less unique and less powerful, at least in her own eyes.

She could have shored up her chromosomes with synthetic DNA patches. Like those used in the Nurseries to produce common embryos in an attempt to repopulate the world with a controlled, predictable process. However, the results of that project were sketchy at best and horrifying at worst. For reasons even the best surviving scientists could not decipher, lab-produced genes simply didn’t control the aging process as well as those obtained from actual humans.

But for the first time, Thalia now believed the solution to that problem was within her reach.

A new discovery that could provide DNA not tainted by the scourge of the Big One.

Fresh, new genes from actual human donors, free from manipulation and loaded with mighty life-supporting powers.

Thalia swirled, admiring her almost flawless shape in the mirror, and stepped outside onto the balcony overlooking the beach with a smile.

According to the report on her desk, time travel was now a reality.

And so was a chance to immortality.

From the Revolutionary Archives

Modern History Tome 2, P-T, page 1391-1392

New Alexandria Library, PanAsia.

The Guild of Travelers (a.k.a. ‘The Guild’, the ‘Guilders’):

Agency established for the purpose of time exploration and retrieval of vital biological data for medical and research purposes.

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- History of:

A) Timeline of the twenty-first-century pandemic cycle and resolution.

B) Interview by E. Sorre, formerly of eNewsLine, missing from previous records.

C) Transcripts from a video recording of the Global Administration’s Council on 4 March 2067, including the funding of a black ops unit tasked with navigating the past, later designated the Guild of Travelers.

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A)

During the late twenty-first century, Earth’s governments faced a critical resource shortage caused by explosive population growth and worsened by extensive deforestation and industrial agriculture.

A protracted cycle of pandemics eventually fueled the development of a family of vaccines that gave simple drinking water the power to eliminate most types of respiratory illnesses, as well as cancer and some auto-immune diseases. The portentous treatment, based on spliced Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens DNA, earned a Nobel prize for its developers. But it also delivered a critical side effect. Unassisted reproduction became impossible for most of the survivors. Over the following decades, populations across the globe became dependent on in vitro fertilization to maintain their numbers. The initial uproars quickly cooled down as humanity enjoyed a disease-free life, and the burden of procreation shifted to specialized centers in all the major cities across the globe. Although initially distressing, this fact came to be considered in a positive light, a perfect tool allowing for human coexistence with the planet within a manageable population plan.

However, the original DNA segment inserted by the vaccines caused various people groups across continents to be genetically similar. The reduction in genetic variability created a communal immune system weakness in all populations. The result was a scourge the likes of which the world had never seen.

The source of the pandemic called Big One remains unclear. Still, the novel virus attacked human cells using the protein coded by the DNA sequence inserted with the vaccine. The disease struck with unprecedented mortality and contagion. Billions died.

Facing the possibility of total annihilation, the World Health Organization took unprecedented steps.

At first, scientists attempted to replace the DNA affected by the vaccine by inserting samples of genes obtained from primates into the human chromosomes. When that approach did not achieve the desired results, the research pivoted toward synthetic DNA. The dark days that followed will be forever marked by the production of humanoid monstrosities, creatures with abominable, lethal traits, forcing the Global Administration to abandon the synthetic gene therapy program.

According to period sources, the solution to humanity’s impending extinction came, as it sometimes does, by accident.

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B)

Mr. Jaffe, thank you for your availability to share with our audience your memories of the day when it all began? We are all dying to know the details.

Mr. Sikka Jones- I’m sorry, I don’t think… I shouldn’t mention…

It’s fine, Mr. Jaffe; we all know the name of the first traveler. Go ahead.

- he didn’t like tight spaces.

He was undergoing a test. It was an MRI machine, is that right?

Yes

A kind of giant doughnut.

Yes. Many patients get uncomfortable. Claustrophobia, you know? I told him to relax and remain still. The bed slid inside, and then I left the room to operate the imaging unit from my workstation. It’s a noisy procedure, you know? The machine revved up, as usual. But then something went wrong. The magnet started to spin like crazy. Lights of all colors were shooting out of it like beams! Blinding! I couldn’t see anything for a while. The noise was… overwhelming.

Wow, that must have been scary!

"You have no idea. The whole room shook like a roller coaster. My control board got so hot it actually melted. All the ceiling lights in the room exploded, like—a massive power surge or something. When the smoke cleared, I ran inside to check on the patient. The unit— it had crumbled. Or melted, or something. Almost flat.

And then, what happened?

"The firefighters pried it open, but he wasn’t there.

"No body?

No trace of him. Or of anything inside the ring.

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C)

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: Dr. Arista, you seek additional funding. Six point four billion bitcredits. Seems pricey for a new lab?

A. Arista, Ph.D.: Chancellor, with due respect, that’s the project estimate from Homeland Security.

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: General?

General H.S. Gupton, Homeland Security Secretary: The funds include the initial appropriation from the Defense Department. We need to build a new ship and train the crew. A new class of ships, to be exact, based on the engine designed by Dr. A.

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: This is the result of your… quantum flow project. I gather it was successful.

A. Arista, Ph.D.: Yes, Chancellor, beyond expectations. I can confirm we have an effective time travel engine.

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: "Since some here didn’t participate in the original discussions, please update us on how we arrived at this point. I am referring to the initial event.

A. Arista, Ph.D.: The original discovery of the quantum field effect dates back to a routine diagnostic procedure. A small building in the North West, a medical diagnostic center, suffered a direct lightning strike, which the structure’s safety systems failed to properly ground. The massive magnetic field surrounding the electrical charge reached an MRI unit, which was being used at the time. The rotating magnet created a force field in excess of a zeta-Tesla within the device. Enough power that the machine collapsed to less than a third of its original volume. The materials inside the unit, including its occupant, disappeared. Our research later demonstrated that a magnetic field exceeding critical threshold can alter the relationship between space and time. The force field can condense an object’s mass and send it to another location along the time-space continuum. In the event in question, both patient and treatment bed had been sent to another location along the timeline.

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: And the subject… was never retrieved.

A. Arista, Ph.D.: That’s correct. We don’t know his exact location.

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: You built a propulsion system on this principle. The same you used on your test?

A. Arista, Ph.D.: Indeed.

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: But now, just to be clear, you can control it? Predict the location where the engine will send you?

A. Arista, Ph.D.: Yes, Chancellor. There are many variables, both payload and non-payload specific, including entangled items, original tracks—

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: Let’s skip the technical details for now, doctor. Let’s just say… do you confirm… we can say that, at this point, you can… travel to the past?

Yes, Chancellor.

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: I am sure the Council agrees with me; this presents some unique opportunities.

N.R. Sanjani, Secretary of State: I’m not an expert in this field like you are, doctor, but from what I understand, no one can change the past.

A. Arista, Ph.D.: That’s correct. Our recent test voyage confirmed the grandfather paradox. If we travel back along our timeline, we cannot change events which took place in our past because they have been locked into existence by the very fact that we have witnessed them and that we exist here today as a consequence of those events.

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: That’s disappointing.

A. Arista, Ph.D.: This could be seen as a problem, but actually, it is a great safety net for our purposes.

Thalia C Rasmussen, Ph.D., Chancellor: Please elaborate.