The ELI Event B007R5LTNS

plastiskin masks, so no one ever knew exactly what he looked like.
    The moment stretched, heightening the troopers’ sense of dread. Sazar felt certain the Vice Governor was enjoying their barely contained panic. He was, of course.
    Lokus had obtained his appointment following the untimely—and unlikely—accident that took the life of his predecessor little more than a year past. The now-infamous Lokus came up through the ranks, first as a trooper, then as a government military liaison, and later as a Regional Administrator in Nuevo Angeles. He saw firsthand how the world had gone to hell in a hand basket, how the unwashed masses had themselves forced the need for a strong military government. A government, his government, with virtually the only computing power on the planet; a government protecting its few thousands of affluent, contented citizens from the many millions of technologically-destitute commoners, the dregs of humanity who, given the chance, would gladly and stupidly tear down the only institution keeping them alive.
    Much of society’s deterioration, he knew, stemmed from its dysfunctional relationship with technology. Knowledge was indeed power, and the technology-minded minority had simply usurped the power of the entire planet from the technophobic majority, leaving a societal chasm of huge proportions. As a result, the only technological development that mattered any more, indeed, virtually the only development that now took place anywhere, was done by the government and that, of course, was carefully controlled in scope and application.
    According to the outsiders, the world was harsh and unforgiving, technology was practically nonexistent, everything had to be done by hand. But Lokus and his kind saw nothing of that. The world was not so bad; it was quite good, in fact—provided you were one of the privileged insiders.
    Now a youthful sixty-seven, barely middle-aged by the day’s standards, Lokus had seen incredible leaps in technology within his lifetime, culminating with the discovery of the so-called Final Unification Theory and the subsequent development of time travel. Temporal relocation, as it became known, was unquestionably the most important technology ever developed by man, and ironically the one considered by the government too dangerous to use, hence the tight restrictions on research.
    There were those, of course, not afraid to use it, like Borok and his gaggle of moral dissenters. They were a pathetic little group who seemed to feel it their duty to destroy whatever fragile security remained in the present world by changing the past. Himself a student of history, Lokus understood their logic if not their motives. Although he did not know where their laboratory was located, nor their specific plans, he had a disturbingly clear picture of their primary goal.
    By identifying and time traveling to important historical junctures where things had gone wrong—at least by their warped historical interpretation—they hoped to alter the time stream at this crossroads or that, setting the world on a new temporal path, thereby affecting their own present. This present, his present, his comfortable, privileged present. Now that was a dangerous plan, one that had to be stopped at any cost.
    He strolled leisurely around the desk, staying always within the shadows. He stopped not four feet before the troopers, and still they could not see him clearly. The whites of his eyes, however, fairly shone as if backlit, the dark pupils mere pinpoints of blackness, emanating pure malice.
    “Trooper Valik,” Lokus began, “I understand you had the opportunity to fire upon the fleeing skimmer. Is that correct?”
    Valik swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he managed.
    “Did you have a clear shot?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Pray do enlighten me, then, as to why you did not take it.”
    Valik hesitated, considered whether to lie, decided against it. “Trooper Sazar stopped me, Vice Governor.” Sazar stiffened. “I… I was going to shoot them down, but Sazar stopped me. Sir.”
    The Vice Governor’s focus slowly shifted; there was a slight tilting of the head, an almost imperceptible turning of the shoulders toward Sazar. “Is this correct, Trooper Sazar? Did you prevent Trooper Valik from firing on the skimmer?”
    “Yes, sir,” Sazar answered immediately. Whatever else was going through his mind, he did not even consider answering dishonestly.
    Lokus paused for a moment, then seemed to make a decision.