It was a cloudy March morning in 2002. Penny Cest was driving her Nissan Centra on the Bayshore freeway in San Francisco. She had been commissioner since 1996. Her cell phone rang.

"This is Commissioner Cest." Penny answered.

"Commissioner", a voice from her phone replied, "this is Mayor Getzbe."

The loud thumping of rap music vibrated her car as she tried to hear the phone. When Penny looked in the rear view mirror, she noticed a large GMC pickup tailgating. A man with a shaved head in his mid-thirties was driving the vehicle. She signaled to turn as the Civic Center Center exit approached. Cest exited the freeway, but the truck stayed close behind. As she slowed for the red light, she caught a glimpse of the driver's face - beat red and in total rage. He began revving his loud engine, apparently agitated that Cest was in his way.

All the sudden the large truck passed her on the right, clipping her car slightly as it cut in front.

"What's the matter Cest", the mayor said.

"Nothing, Mr. Mayor. I'll have to call you back", Penny replied. "There's a small matter I need to tend to."

The driver of the pickup didn't pull over, but kept on going. Penny followed him into a small parking lot, which a burly man got out. Penny pulled in and quickly ran up to him.

"Excuse me, sir", Penny politely spoke out, "I think we just had an accident."

The man turned around and gave Penny a cold stare as his pale shaved head glowed from the sunlight.

"You clipped my car back there." Penny continued.

Not saying anything, the man walked over to Penny's car and kicked in the door with his engineering boots, then turned to Penny with the same stare.

"That wasn't nice", Penny calmly stated as she slowly pulled out a can of mace.

"Look bitch", the man replied in a gravel voice, "I got cop friends. Use that on me, and you'll be doin' some hard time in the slammer. It's the law!"

The man was using the no tolerance weapons laws to intimidate Penny. A new DA had been pursuing cases involving weapons charges to show he was tough on crime. Unfortunately, the suspects who usually ended up in his court were women or smaller men who used the "weapons" as means of self defense.

"Oh what the heck", Penny replied as she put down the mace., "Why don't you just call one of those friends of yours, and we'll straighten this matter out."

The man pulled a cell phone from his pocket and made a call.

"Dave", the man said. "Some crazy bitch is here in the parking lot of Bryant and Fourth threatening me with a can of mace."

He put the phone back in his pocket and advanced toward Penny. She made a quick turn and slipped away.

"You're going to jail", the man said, as he grabbed Penny's arm, the same arm that was injured 16 years ago from a gunshot wound.

Penny broke free as a sharp pain ran through her arm. She quickly sprung up and kicked the man in the face, jerking it back. Veins started to appear from his large neck.

"You wanna act like a man", he said wiping his face, "I'm sure as hell gonna treat you like one."

"Give me your best shot, Curly", Penny replied.

The man shook his large head and lunged toward Penny. She quickly moved out of the way and jumped on a nearby car. The shaved head bully tripped into a garbage can and landed on his face. As he laid on the ground, he noticed a broken wine bottle. Grabbing it, he jumped to his feet, but Penny was nowhere to be found. All the sudden, the bottle was kicked from his hands, and another swift kick struck his head, bringing the him to his knees.

From behind, the sound of sirens echoed through the walls of the large buildings. Two patrol cars screeched to a stop. Four police officers got out of the car, ran over to Penny and put their service revolvers to her head.

"Hit the ground!" one officer yelled.

Cest attempted to respond: "But I'm..."

"Shut up!" he barked back. "You don't know who you just messed with."

Another officer went over to the man.

"Are you all right, Ron?", he asked.

"The bitch pulled a can of mace on me."

"Is that right", the officer replied. He then walked over to Penny. "Do you know who this is?"

"You better check my ID, rookie", Penny replied as she sat on the ground with her hands behind her head.

"This is the owner of Ron's Towing", the officer replied as he pulled the ID from Penny's purse, "He runs things around..."

The officer stopped in mid-speech with as mouth open as he looked Penny's ID.

"What's the matter?" the large man screamed out, "Arrest the skirt. She violated my rights! She broke the law!"

Penny got up and the officers retreated in embarrassment.

"Sorry Commissioner Cest" one of the officers said "Ah, we didn't know you..."

"We gotta go now." The other officer said as they quickly turned toward their cars.

"Hold it boys", Penny said. She pulled out her cell phone and called the beat supervisor. "You're going to have alot of answering to do."

It was later discovered that Ron the tow truck driver had been illegally towing cars from parking lots in the downtown area. He charged victims exorbitant rates to retrieve their cars. He continued this practice, even after the district attorney's office slapped a restraining order on him to stop. They responded to Ron's call were on the take. The corrupt officers would come to his tow yard and arrest anyone on frivolous charges who protested the high rates to get their cars back.

The Mayor's office

Mayor Getzbe, a charismatic black man in his mid-fifties, just finished a phone conversation to a constituent when Penny walked in.

"What kept you, Commissioner?" Getzbe asked, "I called you over an hour ago."

"Just a small matter, Mr. Mayor", Penny responded, "this must be quite important.

"Sidney Bekon has just been released from prison, Cest." Getzbe continued.

"That was a long time ago", Penny said , "but I must remember to thank him for my arm injury."

The mayor sat in his chair hesitant in explaining the dilemma.

'"As you remember", Getzbe continued, "Sidney Bekon was able to develop a microchip and implant it in a human brain. And this was all done at a time when personal computers were still in their infancy, and the Internet was restricted to university elites"

"What has he been up to now?" Penny asked in skepticism, "Develop some super smart killer robot?"

"Bekon has developed a means of time travel." Getzbe said with a straight face.

"You're kidding... Aren't you?" Getzbe didn't respond. "You're not kidding."

"Back in the mid-seventies", Getzbe explained, "Sidney Bekon was a consultant to a secret government project in the Nevada desert."

"This was about the time he owned Empire Computers", Penny replied.

The mayor continued: "Computers from his company were used to run the project. The goal was to achieve a means of time travel as a defense for nuclear attack from the Soviet Union."

"How would this science fiction fantasy stop a nuclear attack?" Penny asked.

"If the Russians unleashed their arsenal of ICBMs, the US could turn the clock back several hours and destroy the offensive missile silos before they could launch."

The mayor reached over to a drawer at the bottom of his desk and pulled out a bottle of brandy. He pulled out a glass from another drawer and poured the drink.

"Apparently they had attained some success in sub-matter", he continued. "They were somehow able to move these particles through time a fraction of a second by changing the properties of gravity. But there was a missing link, a mathematical equation that needed to be resolved in order to transport anything larger than an atom and more than just a few seconds."

"And during Bekon's fifteen years in years in prison, he pursued the equation", Penny said as she looked up, "resolving the Holy Grail of physics?"

Getzbe walked over to a filing cabinet and pulled out a folder. He removed a piece of paper wrapped in plastic and handed it to Penny.

"This is Sidney Bekon. The year is 1957. I have the knowledge and power to change the world. September 11th 2001 will seem like a little forth of July celebration after I get through sending some fireworks."

"What does this prove, Mayor Getzbe?" Penny asked. "The letter is a fake."

"No fake, Commissioner", Getzbe responded. "This letter has been in a safety deposit box for the last 45 years. It was checked in a lab and authenticated. Oh by the way, he also sent this."

The Mayor handed Penny an old newspaper article with Bekons picture in the front page dated 1957.

"Mr. Mayor", Penny responded. "Out of all due respect, this image could have been manipulated on any home computer. You have nothing!"

Getzbe's face was somber as he pulled out another piece of paper with the same picture.

"I got this yesterday from the microfilm archives at the San Jose Library, Cest."

"Let's say Sidney Bekon has been able to pull everything off as you claim." Penny contemplated. "How would we stop him?"

"There were two transport vehicles built in case the experiment ever got off the ground.", the mayor said as he swallowed a drink from his glass. "One of the vehicles was reported missing shortly after Bekon was released. If we were to find the missing equation, the other vehicle could follow him in time."

"There is only one person I know of who may be able to give us some answers", Penny said..

The next morning

Penny Cest stood in the elevator as the numbers climbed. When it reached 15, the door opened. There was a large receptionist counter with large letters KMOG behind the young female assistant. KMOG RADIO occupied that floor of the building.

Since Vince Montgony sold the station was 10 years ago to a large conglomerate, the format changed from Sinatra music to news and talk. Most of the staff were fired, except for Cindy Taylor, who was able to keep her computer show she had for the last 15 years.

Penny walked up to the receptionist desk, and the young woman led her down a hallway. Penny noticed framed photographs of various talk show personalities. At the end of the hall, a red light glowed: "ON THE AIR". Behind the glass window was a woman quite different looking than the young girl who helped apprehend Sidney Bekon back in 1986. Now approaching middle age in her thirties, her once vibrant brunette hair was showing a little gray and cut very short. Her once bushy eye brows were now trimmed, but she still wore her large pearl necklace and sported the same cute smile.

Wearing a set of headphones, Cindy motioned Cest to come in. A large computer and a microphone sat before her. Off to the left was a large window, where her producer on the other side sat screening calls for the popular host. As Penny entered the room, Cindy was frantically entering documentation on her log with a ball point pen. A commercial was playing in the background as the computer guru looked up to greet Penny.

"Can you believe this?", Cindy griped with a smile as she pulled off the headset, "Here I am doing a show about computers, and they make me fill out a log with a ball point pen!"

"That's progress!" Cest replied as they both laughed.

"My, you haven't changed a bit, Officer Cest. What has it been...12 years?"

"Ah, I've sinced been kicked upstairs to commissioner", Penny replied with an embarrassed smile, "And it's been almost 16 years."

"Hey, congratulations", Cindy replied as she shook her hand with a hug.

At that point , the commercial ended. Cindy handed Penny a set of headphones and put hers back on.

"Good afternoon, Jack from San Rafeal. This is Cindy, and you can ask me anything about computers."

"Hello, Cindy", the caller replied, "I just bought an i-Link card for my Pentium 3 and it doesn't work."

"Well caller", Cindy replied, "Have you read my book?"

"No Cindy", Jack replied, "I'm kind of new to this, you know..."

"That's no excuse, Jack", Cindy interrupted. "If you can afford a computer, you can certainly afford my book."

Penny just sat in a chair next to Cindy shaking her head.

"I'll tell you what, Jack", Cindy continued. "I'm feeling pretty generous today. You give your address to my producer and I will send you my book, 'Ask Cindy Anything About Computers', personally autographed by yours truly - best seller on Amazon.COM - I might add." Cindy winked at Penny and continued. "Read Chapter 15 on setting up new hardware, Jack, take two aspirin and call me in the morning darling. Ta ta!"

Penny laughed inside at the way Cindy was handling the call. When she knew her briefly in the eighties at Bekon Micro Devices, she always saw Cindy as a cut above the rest, but in the last 16 years, Cindy has definitely sharpened her wits.

After the show was over, they both ended up in the station's break room, which consisted of a snack machine and a large coffee pot. Cindy was sipping on some herbal tea.

"I need to ask you something, Cindy. What was Vince Montgony like?"

"Funny you ask, Penny. He made large sums of money back in the fifties playing the horses. His people were afraid of him because of his mob connections and such."

"You weren't?"

"I suppose I should have been", Cindy answered in recollection, "But he was just a small child calling for help. After I put him in his place, he seemed to be afraid of me."

"Do you know what he did before that?" asked Penny.

"I believe he was a maintenance worker at an amusement park down in San Jose."

Penny's expression turn puzzled "How does a maintenance worker all the sudden become rich playing the poneys?"

"I take it this isn't a personal visit, Commissioner", Cindy asked.

"No, I'm afraid it isn't, Cindy." Penny replied with a serious look. "Sidney Bekon has just been released from the Pen."

"I was afraid this would eventually happen one day," Cindy said as she shook her head. "He was the most despicable little man I had ever met in my life. Where is he?"

"Officially, his where abouts are unknown", Penny responded as she handed Cindy a paper. "Unofficially, the question is: when is he?"

Cindy looked a copy of the paper the mayor found in the safety deposit box.

"Is this some sort of sick joke?" Cindy asked.

Penny went on to explain the government experiments in the mid-1970s.

"How does this involve me, Penny? It's been so long since I worked for Sidney Bekon that I don't know if I can be of much help.".

"He is presently hiding somewhere in the Santa Clara Valley in the year of 1957."

"That's nine years before I was even born, Penny!" Cindy said as she got up. "You know, my mother died recently."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Cindy", Penny said comfortingly.

"It was siroccos of the liver", Cindy continued. "In 1957, my mother and father met at a small boarding school in Los Angeles. Shortly after, we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when my dad could afford a nice house. During my high school years, my mother's life changed drastically, as she began to drink. My father left her in my senior year and gained custody of my brother and I."

Penny listened with interest.

"In my mother's later years, I never spoke to her, Penny", Cindy said with as her voice began to crack. "She died a broken woman!"

Penny held Cindy's arm as she looked up at her with wet eyes.

"When I was very young, I vowed never to be like her. I didn't smoke, drink and tried to live a clean responsible life. But if I could ever go back in time", Cindy wished, "I would need to see my mother, to change the course of history which led to her early demise".

"We can't do that Cindy. If we changed one little thing, it could produce a ripple effect that would alter everything as we now know it - even your own existence."

Cindy looked down and shook her head.

"I need your help in tracking Bekon", Penny said. "You knew him better than anybody."

"But that was almost 16 years ago, Penny. I'm not the same person as I was then, and I doubt that Bekon is either."

"We're out of options Cindy. It's either you or nothing. I'm going to need your help in breaking the missing equation. Then we will then need to get in and get out of 1957 to stop Sidney Bekon before he destroys all of civilization."

NEXT: PART III THE MAINTENANCE WORKER HITS THE JACKPOT