Ensemble [Book 1: SEKTOR V Trilogy]

Chapter 9: The Institute

Chapter 9: The Institute

Madeleine realized she hadn't been out at the Institute since she graduated. She was looking forward to the visit and seeing her old Professor again.

Nothing had changed, at least not from the outside. Everything looked quite unspectacular as always. With its spread-out, rural landscape, The Institute had none of the feel of a traditional university campus. Of course, for obvious reasons it had to be that way. Still, it did have everything the Underground movement needed. Great teachers, top-notch facilities, the best technicians, scientists, and, of course, elite students. Getting the right people was no small task given the fact that the Underground was directly competing with the deep-pocketed Ministry for top talent. Sometimes they had to overpay but mostly they used the moral high-ground recruitment tool or the intellectual superiority route to get the people they wanted.

It hadn't always been that way, Maddy thought as she pulled into the parking spot outside of the lecture hall. Her father, Dr. Ronald Wilheim, worked for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) for 22 years before it was absorbed into the fledgling Ministry some 27 years ago. Back then, working for DARPA meant you were doing some cool shit. Her dad's work was no exception. He had top-secret clearance but it was no secret that he was working on advanced time travel applications. More specifically, he was working on technologies that would enable multi-year Jumps into the future.

The only problem was the newly-minted Ministry wanted nothing to do with innovations of that kind. They didn't care about anything other than perfecting short-term Jump techniques that would allow them to efficiently maintain full social and economic control. The only research worth funding were efforts directly associated with the recently established Sweeper program. Her father had little use for such a short-sighted, draconian operation. And as a result, the Ministry had little use for him.

What stuck with Maddy all these years, however, was not the philosophical differences that her father had with the Ministry. It was the brutal, dishonest, and heartless way in which the organization quickly chewed up and spat out one of its own. He tried for years to get the Ministry to strive for more and to look more broadly at the vast possibilities associated with the science of time travel. In the end, his efforts proved fruitless. Ministry leadership simply wasn't interested.

Instead, they decided to transform her father into a public pariah, which proved to be a quick and effective way to get rid of him once and for all. After planting false evidence of espionage, stripping him of his clearance, job, pension, and ultimately his dignity, Maddy's father had become a shell of the man he once was. He died soon after he was convicted of crimes he didn't commit. He never made it to sentencing.

To this day, Maddy's mother and younger brother hadn't recovered emotionally. Maddy hadn't either. She knew that her drive and deep devotion to the Underground kept her mind otherwise occupied most of the time. To her, everything that the Underground had become was what the Ministry should have always been...but never was. Still, Maddy tried to live her life without regret. It wasn't in her nature to pontificate and wonder "what if". She was a doer, and she was doing her best in an organization she deeply believed in.

The same could be said for Dr. Edward Karak, the Director of the Underground's Institute for Higher Learning, whom she was here to see. Her memories of him were as a talented physics professor, but there was no doubt that he'd now really hit his stride as the school's top signal-caller. While she hadn't kept in close contact with her old Professor, she was nevertheless fully aware of the many successes and discoveries that had come from the Institute. Over the years, he'd managed to find the necessary resources, staff, and students to keep things running smoothly.