Drop Point - Episode Five: No Go

Previously on Drop Point:

Selected for his bloodline, Kyle Carter was recruited to be sent back in time in order to give Luna, Earth’s moon, important information that would stop a deadly 120-year galactic war. Needless to say, the journey was disorienting, and he lost the file in the flux of space-time. He has been left to turn up at the Luna base empty handed and without proof of his identity.

“Geez, kid, you need a bath,” said Commander Piott, sizing up Kyle Carter with a glance. Kyle was doing the same with Commander Piott. He always thought Commanders had to be decked out in suits and badges day-in-day-out, but instead Piott was wearing a thick long-sleeved grey shirt and blue jeans. He was relaxed in a hover chair that floated calmly three feet off the ground, his hands resting behind his head. The underside of the chair, which looked like a round platter with pillows inside, glowed bright blue.

“Anywhere I can get one?” Kyle asked hopefully.

“In a sec. So, why are you here?”

Kyle froze. He’d completely forgotten that the file was nowhere to be found. Without that, he’d have no proof he actually was from the future, or why the future had been so keen to get him here. Well, he thought, it’s best just to tell him the truth.

“I came from the future to give you important information concerning this big 120-year war that you’re getting ready to go into, but I lost the file and my only transportation back,” he said all in one breath. Piott was quiet for a moment, reading Kyle’s face.

“Where is the file?” he said quietly.

“I don’t know, sir. I lost it on the trip,” he said nervously.

“The trip?”

“The time machine trip from 2455, my time, to 2335, your time, sir.”

“I see,” Piott said, and stood up. The chair wobbled up an inch or two, then the light on the bottom side dimmed and it slowly sunk to the floor with a whirring noise. He turned and addressed a soldier that was standing just inside the door. “I hear this boy has a NIDS spotlight,” he said. The soldier nodded. “Send me the results, please.” The soldier bowed and exited the room.

“What did the file contain?” Piott turned to Kyle, who shrugged. “The only thing I know about is something called the Siren, and the number… thirty seven,” Kyle added. It was Piott’s turn to freeze, apparently.

“Back up. Did you say Siren?” He walked over to Kyle and grabbed his shoulders. “The Siren?”

“Yes sir, why?”

Instead of answering this question, Piott turned around and walked over to his desk and lifted the phone from its receiver, putting it to his ear.

“Code Three-Seven-One-One-Two, Delta. Repeat: 37112D. Contact: Doctor Morris Bradley.” A pause, then: “Doctor Bradley? Get down here immediately, and get your cuckoo reader ready to fly. I have someone,” pause as he made eye contact with Kyle, “I want you to meet.” He clicked a button on the phone, and put it back to his ear. “Contact: Secretary. Miss Shaw? Yeah, push back my meeting. Something more important came up.” He slammed the phone back in its receiver and dropped down in his chair, which floated back up into the air immediately, glowing brightly again.

“Kyle Carter, or whoever you are, you just became very important to us.”

Just then, the soldier from a moment ago returned, holding a small blue cube that could fit in the palm of Kyle’s hand. “Sir, you need to see this,” he breathed. Piott took it and dropped it into a chrome dish on his desk. Immediately, the dish shined light through it, a light that was first a thin line, then expanded into an inverted pyramid that ended in a blueish hologram of a cube, about three feet to a side, that rotated in the air. Kyle stared into it, and saw text loading.

SEARCH QUIERY: KYLE CARTER

AGE: FIFTEEN                                   HC/EC/SC: BLONDE, BLUE, CAU

HT/WT: 5.7FT/130LBS                    MATCHES: N

CID#: 0345211134532E

Kyle saw Piott’s eyes travel from the hologram to him, and got really nervous at the look of suspicion.

“Kid, you better have a good explanation for why no one gave you a pass to the past, and you better give me one quick before I have that soldier back there put a bullet through your head.”

Kyle swallowed.

“What does ‘matches’ mean?” Kyle pointed.

“The program was designed so that when the future sent someone to the past, they could look up the traveler in the NIDS and give them a pass. ‘Matches’ means how many passes there are that a traveler has.”

“Can you look up how many passes there are, total?”

Piott hesitated, wondering what Kyle was thinking. Then he took to a keyboard next to the chrome projector dish and typed in something. Soon the text in the holograph blinked into nothing, and was replaced by what Kyle assumed was the database. Every now and then, a name would disappear and the list would slide up to fill the empty spot: names were disappearing as people were entered into the ID system. Kyle watched Piott type something into a search box at the top, and hit enter. The list completely disappeared.

“Eh…” Piott’s face took on a look of confusion.

“That’s not right,” Kyle said. “I know for a fact that I wasn’t the first person to ever be sent back in time.”

Piott picked up his phone. “Contact: Non-temporal Identification System Operator. Hello? Yes, I need to ask you a question. Yes,” he nodded, as if the person on the other end could see him. “Can you enter the database and set a pass for me?”

A pause, and Piott nodded again. “Yeah, I know. Just see if you can enter anything at all.” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you see, we have a friend from the future with us who seems to have been unable to acquire a pass.” He held his hand over the phone and said to Kyle: “They’re unable to enter passes for anyone. You can only enter passes from the future, and since any time that someone tries to enter a pass, for them, it’s the present, so the computer blocks them.”

“You’re kidding,” Kyle said. “Then why do we have this stupid program in the first place?”

Piott sighed. “Probably because until now, nobody thought it wouldn’t work.” He hung up and sat in his chair.

“So, uh, what about my shower?” Kyle asked, looking down at himself. Until now, he’d completely forgotten that he was still covered in what was now completely dry, crusty goop.