Justin had been tinkering in the lab most afternoons. His status as the departmental brain had withered his social status to a mere nothing so he spent more time in the lab. The faculty liked him well enough, even though he seemed to intimidate most of them. His fellow students were in awe and treated him like royalty, Justin hated that. It had only been three years since he had first met LAIT in the depths of the Family vault. Three years of struggling with the knowledge that had been imparted, and yet Justin was still trying to act as if nothing had been said. He could not question the wisdom of the Ancient Ones when it came to future events. It was nothing more than a simple "why me?" The knowledge had colored his life ever since, and now it drove his research.

He had awakened that fateful morning a simple teenager and gone to bed with a complexity of thought that would terrify a grown man. "You were born to save the Family," LAIT had said. And by the end of that day Justin knew it was true.

He had been asked to lie on the blue slab as knowledge was fed into his system. The program had run at a very high speed. His skin tingled as his body absorbed the data through every pore and moved into the very molecular structure of his being. For that is how the Ancient Ones had designed him, he was a walking memory bank ... a liquid filled biological computer.

And as the cone shaped tanks hummed from within, Justin realized they were alive ... alive with the knowledge of the universe and what was beyond. LAIT had spent eons of time choosing this data just for him, and making sure these were things he would need to implement the plan when the time came. And then he ran into the wall.

Random chaos theory, LAIT called it, the force that held Justin back. He would be given the answers and the means to save the Family, but he would not be told when or how it would be needed.

It would harm the effectiveness of your thinking. The plan should be based on reactions to events and any certain knowledge of the time and place you will need to act. Any supposition on my part may affect your response negatively.

Justin had felt like saying "in English please" once again but he knew that LAIT could not explain it any further. And there it was, he was primed with knowledge, he just had no idea when to activate it or what he was up against. Try going to sleep with that on your mind.

But he had learned so much during programming that afternoon. The experience in the vault seemed to make his last name irrelevant. Time was only a figure of speech, a mere inkling of control where events were concerned. Time was no longer relevant to his life because he had seen beyond the confines of his biological clock.

Justin's father was four hundred and sixty-three years of age, something the boy had not known before. But now it took only one look to confirm that knowledge. In some ways it was exciting to know that he would probably live for centuries, but when he applied his advanced problem solving skills to look at that future he hit the wall once again.

The Family rule said that none of the prime males could settle in one place for more than a generation. When his wife passed away, Alan Edgar Time would cease to exist, at least in this present incarnation. This was already the fourth life that his father had created for himself.

It was sad, Justin really loved his mother. But she had been chosen for her genes and the strength they added to his father's to create him. She was only thirty-five and would live a long and normal human lifespan, at least he knew that much. He now felt more attached to her each day they spent together.

It was necessary to protect the Family wrought by the Ancient Ones, but Alan would move on to another town, another life ... another family? He had done it before, would he do it again? Justin had no idea what he would do about himself as he aged, but he was sure the Family would instruct him.

His father understood Justin was different and that he would now have to deal with the consequences. The boy was now smarter than the average seventh grader or most college professors for that matter. Alan Time had approached the local school board, and with the beginning of the fall class schedule Justin found himself in high school. They tested him carefully and were astonished at what they found.

"His I.Q. is off the charts, Dr. Time. I don't see how we can do much good for your son at Jefferson High. In fact his intelligence might be a detriment to his ability to get along with the other students. I would recommend a tutor or maybe even college classes. At least there he can learn at his own pace."

Alan Time enrolled Justin at the University of Virginia as a freshman but his teachers soon saw the folly in limiting the boy's mind. By the second year, Justin was in the advanced physics curriculum, something only graduate students achieved. It was awkward at first for these twenty-something year old students to have a sixteen year old boy in their midst, but he was valued for his knowledge.

Justin had given up reading text books, he didn't need them. All the knowledge he would ever need was already programmed inside of him. What he needed was equipment and lab space to develop his theories, and the Family provided.

Just where the grant money came from wasn't an issue to the chancellor of the school; they received anonymous donations all the time. But he was concerned at the stipulations that came along with the cash. Someone was aware of his young genius and the money was aimed specifically at the boy's education.

Justin's educational needs were met, but what about the rest of him? No one addressed the social and physical needs of a growing boy, how could they? Justin had already come to an understanding about himself a few years before the onset of puberty. But he wasn't old enough back then to act upon these feelings. And now that he was aware they seemed impossible.

They had moved into their new Virginia home and in a matter of days Justin had set out to discover his new surroundings. There was a movie theatre and shopping mall within biking distance, everything a normal adolescent boy might consider important. But he was no longer normal…he had never been normal.

But he had been well liked up north, and leaving behind all his school friends left Justin with a terrible sadness inside. His parents didn't understand what he had lost in the move, how could they? Justin would have been unable to explain it to them even in simple terms.

How could he tell his parents that he had these feelings about himself, these urges to explore the unknown and to satisfy certain deep seated desires? Norman was the only one who knew, but at the time he was just another ten year old boy.

Their friendship had been special in every sense of the word. Norman had a terrible crush on Justin, even back in the fourth grade, and they had just begun to explore what that meant to them both. Then Justin's family moved for no apparent reason.

When it is so obvious that someone desires you, and then that relationship is lost…how do you replace that person? Justin had no doubts that Norman would have become closer and done anything for the sake of their friendship. And if the boy had been around when puberty blessed them…well, it would have been an awesome experience.

But now he had urges that left him feeling vacant, even as the tide of testosterone rose within his adolescent body. He had desires and needs that were unsatisfied, and worse, he felt it was something he had to keep hidden deep inside. Justin felt alone in his new world and then everything about his life changed.

If anything, the advanced knowledge only made him more aware of his desires. But he had been accelerated into adulthood, leaving his childhood unfinished. It was the cruelest joke life had ever played on him.

This particular morning Justin had been trying to figure out why his laser experiment had gone wrong the night before. Three graduate students had loosely banded together with him to build a laser that could bounce light beams off the moon. Thus the Earth's nearest neighbor was to be used like a reflector for the signals they could broadcast.

To Justin it was a silly toy, but the application of physical laws and the need to apply his knowledge seemed like a primal urge. He felt that what he was doing was close to the walls of that great body of knowledge in his mind. Perhaps he would find a way to look over that wall and see the future.

The signals had come back out of phase and he figured the laser just wasn't getting enough power to create the reflection properly. He would have explained it further but none of the others involved would understand the details. Simply put, a television signal emitted fifty miles from home would look better. He needed a new source to increase the power.

If he could focus the particles emitted from a small nuclear reaction it should multiply the return signal. But who was going to let a sixteen year old boy play with a reactor? He was sure it would work, but the solution was beyond the university's capability. And then he thought of LAIT.

He had not been back to the vault since that first visit. So he called his father. Not on the telephone, that was simply too primitive, he just thought.

Dad, I need to visit the vault…do you want to come with me?

Hello, Son ... I have a full schedule of patients this morning ... can you go by yourself?

Sure, I have to ask something of LAIT.

I'm sure LAIT will be glad to see you. Maybe he'll have some new jokes.

Yeah ... just maybe. Thanks, Pops.

Justin drove himself east on Highway 64 from Charlottesville and turned north towards Harrisonburg. It took him a little over two hours to reach his destination and when he pulled into the little gas station the old man was there to greet him.

Good to see you back, young fella. Your father told me you were coming.

Hello sir, I need to visit LAIT.

I'm sure you do, interesting critter, isn't he? He pops in to visit on occasion just to see the outside world…and tell me a joke or two.

But he isn't real, is he? Just a computer enhanced creature.

Believe what you want, my boy, but he's older than these hills. I'll open the door for you.

Justin drove into the mountain and placed his hand on the glass plate. As the door opened LAIT was waiting on the other side.

Ahh, our young genius has arrived, welcome once again.

Hello, LAIT ... I came because I need your help.

Yes, I know. I already have what you need.

Of course he had known, LAIT knew everything. The past ... the future ... nothing was hidden from this most unique creature. They descended in the elevator and walked to the center of the library. Justin immediately saw a small box sitting on the slab between the cones.

It was really nothing more than a ceramic cube, about eight inches on a side. One face was green, the opposite red, and there was hole running between them. The other faces were black and completely solid. But when Justin tried to pick it up the thing seemed to weigh a ton.

LAIT gestured towards the cube. Your power enhancer.

You already knew? Of course you did ... how does it work?

That I cannot tell you, the Ancient Ones designed this unit. Energy goes in the green side and comes out the red. Just be careful, do not put energy of any kind into the red side ... never ever. And you must never let this unit out of your sight ... never ever. When you are done with your experiment it must be returned to me.

LAIT smiled and Justin knew what was coming.

A bear walks into a bar and says to the bartender, "Give me a gin and.....................tonic. The bartender looks at the bear and says, "What's with the pause?" The bear holds up his paws and says, "What's the matter, are they dirty?"

Justin cracked a smile and then started to laugh. LAIT beamed with delight, and then started laughing along with him.

That's a good joke, where did you hear that? I saw it in Reader's Digest last week.

That made Justin laugh harder, he just couldn't picture LAIT reading a magazine. But the creature seemed pleased that he had made Justin laugh.

I see your research into humor is going well. Justin thought.

Yes, it amuses me. I see your research is also going well, you must have a fine laboratory to work in. Sure is. I don't suppose there is anything new on…on the event?

Nothing, do not worry, you are doing well.

It's just that ... well, I don't know what I'm doing. That is a little disconcerting.

It is better this way, you are doing fine. You won't be alone. When the time comes there will be others…and I will help you if necessary.

Others? Well, okay, that's a relief to know. I always knew I could depend on you. Thanks, LAIT.

You are most welcome.

Guess I better go. How am I supposed to move this thing?

It's real heavy.

Just pick it up and put it in your pocket.

Justin wasn't sure he'd heard that right, it was too heavy. But when he placed his hand on the cube it shrank into a miniature of itself and weighed no more than a few ounces. LAIT smiled and walked back to the entrance with him.

Good-bye my friend, Justin thought.

Yes, until next time ... And LAIT vanished.

Justin followed the lighted path to the end and as he stepped forward the walls appeared around him and he was whisked upwards. He knew how it worked now. The 'elevator' wasn't real at all. The Ancient Ones had designed it to comfort the human passengers, but the teleportation device had no physical link to the surface. In fact Justin knew the vault could be anywhere in the Earth's interior. How clever, no one outside the Family would ever find it.

He also knew it would be his technology that would eventually solve the upcoming event. But revealing any of this outside the Family would create a crisis. At least now Justin knew he wasn't going to do it alone. Where were the others?

Justin had begun searching for other Family members the year before. It had occurred to him that they might be a part of the environment in which he lived and so he sought them out mentally. But so far he had not discovered a single one and his father said not to get discouraged.

I am finished at the vault, Dad. LAIT said there would be others to help me in this task. Where are they, do you know?

No son, but I imagine they will reveal themselves when it becomes necessary to achieve your goal.

LAIT gave me this neat little device, something from the Ancient Ones. T

hen guard it carefully, we can't have those things ending up in the wrong hands.

Yeah, that would be dangerous. See you tonight.

You going to be home for dinner?

I'll try at least.

Good bye, Son.

After several hours of changing the equipment array to accept the power enhancer, Justin called in his team. Dinner was forgotten and by two-thirty in the morning they had the test equipment put together. At three they gave the moon a burst of intense light that appeared to be a thousand times stronger than before, and yet nothing happened.

The other students grumbled and went back to the dorms for sleep while Justin once again tried to figure out where the signal had gone wrong. He ran a digital copy of the procedure back to the beginning of the experiment three weeks before. Somehow they had missed something.

Running a review of the previous data he couldn't believe his eyes when the signal appeared. How had they missed it? Impossible, but they had been running the test signal data over and over using a new subject each time. The shock was that the subject he saw now hadn't even been chosen at that point.

But there it was clear as a bell. He had chosen simplicity and added a bit of LAIT's humor. They had bounced a scene from the old Disney movie Bambi off the moon's surface as a digital signal through the laser only hours before. But here it was in the memory banks that had been recorded weeks ago. This made no sense. By increasing the power they had somehow bounced the signal back in time almost twenty days.

Justin had come upon a huge discovery and no one was going to believe it, but at the same time he knew he couldn't tell anyone either. The power increase had speeded up a signal beyond the speed of light and in fact had thrown it back in time. What had happened to relativity?

There was a massive amount of work to be done if this fluctuation in time could be controlled. He would have to design a means to not only control it but to calibrate how far back it might go. And what if it could be made to go ahead in time as well?

Justin spent days in an effort to calibrate the signals which the others in the group viewed as useless. To them the experiment had failed and he did little to dissuade them from believing that. He moved into the lab and slept on a couch as he continued to work.

By adjusting the equipment and scanning the memory banks every day, he was soon looking at things projected weeks before they were sent. Justin was looking at the future. And then the images changed. He was receiving things he had not even sent…or had he?

There were sketches of equipment that had yet to be developed and in the notations he recognized his own handwriting. In short, the future Justin was telling him in the present how to control the effects. Clever, but then he expected that of himself.

He began studying the drawings and built what was needed. He gave no thought to the idea that once that future date was reached he would be ready to use the experiment for whatever was needed.

The device was now a thousand or more times stronger than the one he had first built. The calibration tools finally revealed that the next signal would originate two point two years hence. He would be an eighteen year old man at that point in the future. The conclusion was stunning.

In theory he would never be able to jump ahead in time and visit with himself. But it seems he would be able to sit in the future and drop notes to himself in the past. He would understand that he had read all these things once upon a time and it made him wonder. Why was this future self doing all this?

And just as he began to question that motive the answer arrived. The signals had been getting closer to a more direct line communication from the future. The calibration variables became easier to calculate and once these were factored in, the signal became closer to a phone call. That theory was proved correct when the next signal he found answered that very question.

His future self had been trying to shoot the time gap with a signal but lacked the coordination from this end. But real time events occurred that would make this possible, he had just needed a reminder. Current events were history to his future self and he began to use the knowledge to focus the signals better.

And when the next message came Justin was astounded, he couldn't believe it yet there it was on the screen of his computer:

"LAIT is a fraud. Beware! There will be an invasion from outside the solar system. The Ancient Ones will send their warriors and only you can stop them. I ... your future self, have designed a weapon of fearsome proportions to stop them so now you have the warning and the time to prepare. Look to Orion's stars in the Horsehead Nebula, they will be coming."

Justin re-read the message, how could he believe this? But if it was true, how could he even think of stopping them? With what? There was only one way to find out. He adjusted the calibration and powered up the laser. The tracking equipment turned the dome over the mirrors and he received a green light on the discharge tube. The program screen was blank, awaiting a digital image from him. What should he ask, how could he confirm the message?

He thought a minute and then typed: "What kind of soda does my father drink?" He pressed the start button and the laser discharged, sending the question two years into the future. The wait time was excruciating and then from somewhere deep inside his computer a mechanical sound beeped, he had an incoming message.

The image of a single word appeared on his screen. "Orange."

And then the sound beeped again. This time the message was a burst transmission of compressed data. The numbers flashed across his screen at an incredible rate and he could see it was quickly filling up his hard drive with information. The transmission stopped a second and then a legible sentence appeared in the screen.

"I have given you the solution as I see it, work on it, make it better, there will be no second chance. They are coming for us very soon. No place will be safe from them if they set foot on the Earth. Save yourself, Justin, save mankind as only you can, they are not our ancestors, they are predators.

It has all been a lie and LAIT is only a farmer in charge of their sheep. You must destroy the creature before they turn us into protein. You must capture the vault and imprison LAIT. This is something you will accomplish shortly, but whatever you do, do not turn him loose no matter what he tells you.

You will soon be told the big lie of what their plans are for you but don't believe a word of it. I was shocked to learn that they have been helping us overpopulate the planet. They wanted us all to grow fat and lazy so they could have a high protein count when they arrive. Know the truth, they are coming to kill us all and take us home as food for their tables.

The Ancient Ones have lied to our family and LAIT is the key to their invasion…wait no longer, go seek the others. I will not be able to guide you any further than what you have here. But since you are reading this then you must know that you were successful.

I don't want to influence you any further, but I will tell you that someone just like us will be able to help. Perhaps I have said too much already. Keep all this very secret because LAIT has eyes and ears on all things involving the Family. Good Luck…see you in the future."

The transmission abruptly ended. Was it real, could any of this be true? Justin rechecked the data on his computer just to be sure this had indeed come from the future. The calibrations were correct…it had indeed come from his future self. That in itself was astounding, but now he knew things he wished he didn't have to know.

If he did not succeed at whatever task he now faced human kind would be in big trouble. Worse, they would all be annihilated. But success should be theirs because of this message, how could he fail? Could future events be undone? That was certainly something he didn't want to find out the hard way.


On to Unit Three

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