Chapter No.52, Shock.

The next day, Bridget, Kali and I went down to the surface in Washington D.C. to go to the headquarters of NASA, a two-building complex that contains archives and historic records of NASA's missions.

We parked the shuttle in a large parking lot and walked up to the entrance. Surprisingly, it had not been looted or damaged. The solid metal entrance was sealed by means of an electronic locking system.

"How are we going to get in this?" I asked. "It's probably no longer activated, and if it were, we don't know the entrance password."

Kali stepped up to it. "Let me try this. I once had the password."

"This is a different timeline," I pointed out.

"Maybe not," she said as she punched in her password.

The door unlocked and she pulled it open before turning to me. "We're in!"

"I wonder what the probability is for your password working," I said.

"It's like a lot of passwords. They never change them."

"Evidently even in a different timeline."

We entered a vestibule with a standard entry window next to a security station, a typical setup for most government buildings."

"Looks like we have another door to crack," I said, pointing to an entrance to the main part of the building.

Kali went behind the desk and fiddled with a standard keyboard computer. "I used to work behind here before I got promoted to Space Command."

"That was a couple of centuries ago. How could a computer system still function after all that time?"

She smiled. "They built them good back then." She became more serious. "Actually, it's because they powered their systems with atomic batteries that last for at least a thousand years."

The entrance popped open.

"My old passkey numbers still work," she said.

We entered the main part of the building, which at one time served as a museum, library and information source for the public. In our case, we were interested in quarrying the historic records. That system was located in a back room, probably where NASA employees worked to keep the records up to date.

It didn't take Kali long to pull up our records, which matched perfectly with what we remembered, at least Kale, Bridget and I did.

"My record is just as I remembered it," I said.

"Same for me, sir," Bridget said.

I turned to Kali. "Is there any way we could transfer these records to our ship computer system?"

"I think there's a memory chip in the shuttle," Kali said. "I'll go get it."

She left and Bridget and I looked around the Historical library.

I pointed. "Look, they have a picture of my original crew before our mission launch."

"It looks like you, sir," Bridget said.

"That image is two centuries old and I look the same as I did then."

"Blame hyperspace on that, sir."

"Actually, I've only been awake for a little more than a year since I awoke from hibernation, so even If I hadn't gone through hyperspace, I would still look the same."

"Are we going to remain young looking?" she asked me.

"I don't know, but it sure looks that way."

She smiled.

I couldn't tell if she was just acting like a silly teenager or it was her way of dealing with an emotional dilemma.

Kali ran in with her laser rifle in her hand. "We have company, and I don't think it's friendly. I closed the shuttle door."

I drew my laser pistol and powered it. "Take cover."

We hid behind a display table with our weapons ready.

Two men came into the library brandishing rifles. I stood up with my hand on the handle of my laser pistol.

"Who are you?" one of the men growled.

"We're NASA employees just checking on this headquarters," I said in a calm voice.

"No one has been in this building for years," he said.

"We were out on a mission and just arrived back."

"That's impossible. You're just looters." He raised his rifle.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I told him.

Kali drilled both of them.

"You didn't have to kill both of them," I said.

"They're the looters," she retorted.

"Let's get out of here. We have what we need."

When we came to the entrance door, we saw several men with rifles milling around, essentially blocking our path to our shuttle.

"I suppose we have no other choice," I said, frowning at Kali.

"That's the way I see it."

I turned to Bridget. Keep low and aim well."

Kali led the charge. She blasted two men immediately, and I followed up with one. Bridget's pistol fire kept them from aiming well. By the time we got to our shuttle, all six were out of commission. We had the advantage of using high energy laser beams that travel at the speed of light while they were using bullets that fly a lot slower.

I had Kali go in first and fire up the shuttle while Bridget and I made sure we had no new threats. Seeing none, we strapped into our seats while Kali moved the shuttle into the air and fly off at high speed.

Fortunately, we didn't attract any jet fighters on our way back to the ship.

"Why are those men so violent?" Bridget asked.

"I don't know. Maybe it's because there is a lot of conflict on Earth now that most humans are feral."

"I agree with your reluctance to come down here," Kali said. "It amounts to a combat situation every time."

"Yes, and the last thing I want to be doing is killing people."

"Can't be helped," she said.

"I agree, but I still don't like it."

When we got back to the ship, Bridget went to work plugging the data we had downloaded into a memory chip into our computer system. That process took time because it used old fashion transfer protocols

It wasn't until later that evening that Kali and I were able to go over the historical data.

"So far, everything matches to what happened before we launched on our mission," I said. "However, there is one serious discrepancy. It lists the woman I had a child with as being still alive when I went on the mission."

"Maybe that's true for this timeline," Kali said.

"That would suggest that she had our child, but there's no way to trace that."

"We would need census data," she said. "I doubt that would be easy to locate this far in the future."

I began a search of Janet and Sharon's files, but I ran into a problem. "They don't list Janet or Sharon as being in the crew that launched with me."

"Hmm, that doesn't make sense. Why would they list you but not them?"

"Actually, they list Natale and Bridget."

"It sounds as if hyperspace mixed everything up," Kali said.

"Or, we're experiencing some sort of quantum uncertainty issue in this data."

"Wait, I found Janet, but she's listed as a service provider."

Kali chucked. "That's a sneaky euphemistic term for a prostitute."

"Oh, and Sharon is also listed as that."

"That figures."

"I still don't understand how women who had advanced degrees in science would be recruited as sexual companions on an interstellar space mission. It doesn't make sense considering the importance of the reason for going out that far."

"You must have realized back then that government agency had become corrupted. They were being run by men who were misogynists."

I shook my head. "If I had known that, I would never have gone on the mission."

There was a lot of data to go through, and it wasn't until later when Kali had gone to her bunk that I discovered something that made me realize that something was definitely wrong.