1
“I’m Serena Wilcox, former private detective, wife and mother of three. I did investigative work for President Ann Kinji, as you already know.”
“Yes, we know who you are.” Agent Estep folded his arms over his chest and extended his legs far out in front of his chair, crossed at the ankles.
“Agent Estep and I go way back. Don’t let his attitude fool you, we’re buddies.” Serena winked at him. “We worked together during Operation Covert Coffee.”
Estep addressed the group without budging from his slouched nearly-prone sprawl. “Who here doesn’t already know Serena Wilcox?”
A small wiry man raised his hand.
Estep scoffed. “One guy. You’re giving us this spiel for one guy?”
Serena ignored him and resumed reading from her notes. “Now that President Ann’s term has ended, she is ready to launch the Gödel Solution Institute where she is owner and CEO. You are of course already aware of this, as you are the first members of the GSI board of directors. President Ann—I think I speak for all of us when I say that she’ll always be President to us—asked me to kick things off because she wanted you to see the person who is doing the traveling. I suppose she thought you’d keep me safe if you saw my face.” Serena paused for laughter but none was forthcoming. She continued, “Thank you for this opportunity to pioneer in time travel crime investigation. I can’t even begin to express what this means to me.”
Serena sat down amid a smattering of polite applause. The lone person who hadn’t previously met Serena popped up and took her place at the front of the board room.
He took a few sips of water even though he hadn’t yet said a word. Then he studied his audience, which was composed about fifty-fifty of Covert Coffee leftovers (Ann Kinji’s investigative team) and his own people (mathematicians, technicians and scientists): the dark-and-unruly-haired quick-tempered Agent Estep, the 40-something high-energy petite brunette Serena, the infamously burned agent-turned-national-hero Beav, the red-headed curly-haired lass from Ireland, Jo, former agent (and briefly Vice President) Lehman, Ann’s contact Professor Dr. Kendra Wellington and five members of Eduardo’s hand-picked team, Roger McCloy, Gentry Davis, Malirah Cravitz, Jorgi Gorantisch and James Edison Spector. He nodded to his team, they returned the greeting, and then he finally spoke. “I’m here to brief you on Project Scarecrow. I’m Eduardo Martin.”
Eduardo paused to smile at them. Everyone smiled back. He continued. “I assume that you are familiar with the Manhattan Project. In 1939, farther back than we can currently time travel, Albert Einstein sent a letter, drafted by prominent physicists of the time, to President Franklin Roosevelt. Einstein warned of a weapon being built by Nazi Germany that was more powerful than the world had ever known. He was referring to the atomic bomb. The course of history was changed: the United States developed an atomic research program using the code name The Manhattan Project, all because of Einstein’s letter. What if I told you that another such letter existed? A letter that also has the power to change the course of history?”
“Einstein wrote another letter?” Serena asked.
“I didn’t say that.” Eduardo drank the rest of his water as if his brief speech had drained him dry.
Jorgi Gorantisch’s voice boomed from the back of the room. He was a man who never needed a microphone, and given his six-foot-five two-hundred-thirty pound presence, he was seen as easily as he was heard. “Forget Einstein.”
Beav, whose foot had fallen asleep and whose stomach had been rumbling for the past several minutes, entered the conversation. “Then what is this about?”
