Invading the Past

Chapter 04: Opposing Objectives

The air between the two copper wrapped towers glowed faintly before it split down the center and pulled back to either side like a curtain. The edges of the threshold near the towers rippled and shifted, being either a part of one time frame or the other.

"Do you remember how to shut down the equipment?" Colin asked.

Fredric didn't answer as he stared at the metal room and illuminated display screens visible through the glowing opening in the air.

"Fredric?" Colin questioned to get his attention.

"What?" the blacksmith inquired as his attention shifted back to Colin. His mind caught up with the conversation and he answered, "The equipment? Oh yes. I can shut it down."

"Good," Colin accepted. He shook Fredric's hand. "Thanks for all your help. I'll signal when it's time to shut down."

Taking a deep breath, Colin walked through the portal, crossing centuries with a single step. His lab was not as he remembered it, but full of activity unrelated to his research. One of the things he noticed almost instantly was the large defense bots powered down by the main door. A dozen of the hulking machines crouched on the floor like mechanical gorillas.

"Mr. Sterling," a familiar voice spoke up from Colin's left. He turned to see Travis Wellner, the leader of the Zelen Corporation walking toward him. "I'm surprised you survived your time in the past, let alone managed to get back."

"I had some help from one of the locals," Colin answered while still being confused about all the additional hardware moved into his lab. "What's going on around here?"

"Ever since you disappeared, we've been working on discovering what happened," Travis explained. He handed Colin a data pad. "Here are our findings about what caused your malfunction. During our investigation, we learned you'd stumbled onto a form of time travel and decided to make use of it."

"How?" Colin asked.

"Simple," Travis responded. "We're going to invade and take it over. No one in the past could counter our advanced technology. We'll conquer the entire world in mere days and rule forever."

"What of the people who don't want to be conquered?" Colin inquired.

"It's the past," Travis dismissed casually. "They died a long time ago, what difference does it make on exactly when?"

Colin nodded approvingly while pretending to look over the information displayed on the data pad, but his mind was racing, trying to find a way to prevent what was about to happen. He began to pace his lab, pausing near the portal when he read on the data pad he'd been given the Corporation hadn't figured out how to make a stable gateway to support the numbers of troops and supplies they wanted to send.

Realizing what he had to do, Colin dived through the portal with a shout to Fredric, "Shut it down!"

Fredric shoved a trio of levers up, and the power disconnected. The gateway snapped closed with a clap of artificial thunder.

"What's wrong?" Fredric asked urgently.

"They're going to invade and kill anyone who resists," Colin explained. "They haven't figured out how to stabilize the time travel threshold yet, so we have time."

"Time for what?" Fredric questioned.

"We're going to build a few defenses," Colin told him with a smile. "Let's get to work."

   ***   

Four months, one week, and two days later Colin and Fredric waited in an open field outside of town. They wore goggles and breathing masks protect against the smoke being churned out by the various machines Colin had devised and put together with Fredric's help.

"Are you sure this is the place?" Fredric queried.

"Yes," Colin confirmed. "The temporal readings from my scanner have been growing stronger as the time barrier gets closer to being breached. This is where they'll come through."

No sooner had he finished speaking, a fifty foot wide section of air was ripped apart, opening a passage between different points in time. The android ranks of the corporation security forces stood in evenly spaced ranks and columns while awaiting orders. One combat droid stepped across the threshold and into the past as a test of the portal's stability.

Colin, wearing a mechanized suit he'd constructed, moved forward to meet the droid. Pulling back on a set of rings inside the glove encasing his entire left hand, he applied tension to connected cables, causing sharp metal fingers extending straight out from his glove to close like scissor blades. Although unable to cut through the tough exterior armor of the droid, the powerful claws did secure a tight grip, holding the mechanical man motionless while Colin brought his main weapon to bear.

Swinging his right hand, Colin jammed the large sphere mounted at the end of his glove against the chest plate of the droid. Visible through half a dozen holes in the sphere were coils of copper wire. When Colin pulled the interior trigger, the coils of wire were charged with current, sending forth a wave of magnetic energy to shatter the upper half of the droid in hundreds fragments and throw them away in an equal number of directions. Only the magnets around his forearm, sending out a counting wave, prevented his own suit from being destroyed by the pulse.

The destruction of the droid scout seemed to be the signal to attack. The combat droids of the future charge through the portal while the defenders Colin had trained and equipped stood ready to meet them in battle.