Dr. Zeus Inc.

Dr. Zeus Inc., also known simply as The Company, is a fictional entity in a series of time travel science fiction stories by Kage Baker.

According to the stories, Dr. Zeus operates from the 24th century, using technologies of time travel and immortality to exploit the past for commercial gain. The immortality technology is limited to taking young children and turning them into cyborgs, and the time travel technology only allows journeys into the past, and returns to the present. In addition, the techology is expensive and dangerous for normal humans to use.

History, or at least recorded history, cannot be changed. Dr. Zeus cannot save Lincoln, warn the Titanic, prevent the sack of Rome, or stop the burning of the Library at Alexandria. It can take valuable artifacts thought to be lost in these and other events, and 'rediscover' them in the future. However, even without the dangers of time travel, Dr. Zeus' employees hate the past. By their time, all stimulants and narcotics are illegal, vegetarianism is compulsory, and they are disease- and dirt-phobic. They find the past's inhabitants disgusting.

To carry out its mission, Dr. Zeus sends its employees far into human prehistory, where they take children from Neanderthal and modern human families and give them the immortality treatment. These individuals are then promised a bright future in the 24th century, in exchange for working for the Company till then. Their job is to Preserve cultural artifacts, valuable plants, and endangered species, hiding them in safe places till the Company can 'recover' them in the future. The cyborgs will get to the 24th century the old fashioned way, by living through the intervening millennia. Along the way they can create others to help them, using children who would otherwise die and not affect history. They are also provided with many recordings of future culture, entertainment, and a carefully edited view of history. Dr. Zeus alone knows everything that will happen up till the 24th century.

As the series progresses, it becomes apparent that the Dr. Zeus story is itself a fiction. How they came by their technology, and how long the Company has really existed, is an unfolding mystery. In addition, nobody, not even Dr. Zeus, knows what happens after the year 2355. Although communication between different times is possible, there is nothing from beyond a certain date in 2355. This is known as the Silence, and is a source of dread to both Company people and cyborgs.

Major Characters

Preservers

Preservers are the main agents of the Company, specialists in different types of artifacts. They look exactly like normal humans, but small differences give them away to observant individuals.

Mendoza

Mendoza is a female cyborg, a botanist recruited from the dungeons of the Inquisition in 16th century Spain. While still chronologically young, she suffers a huge psychological trauma after falling in love with a doomed mortal in Tudor England. She is also a "Crome Generator", with a powerful psychic potential that she cannot control. Through a series of awful events over the following 300 years, she comes to despise mortals, her fellow cyborgs, and eventually herself. She attempts to isolate herself from all harm, but cannot escape the Company, for whom everything she has done and will do is recorded history. She seems to be part of their plan, but which part ?

Lewis

Lewis is a male cyborg, a Literature specialist taken as a baby in Roman times. He is tall and handsome, with a resemblance to the 1940's actor Leslie Howard. Meeting Mendoza at a Company base in South America in the 17th century, he falls hopelessly in love with her. She is barely aware of this, of course, being already traumatized by the loss of her first love. She disappears from his view in the 19th century, and he tries to find her through the next 300 years, stumbling across Company secrets in the process.

Facilitators

Facilitators are fixers, smooth talkers, masters of disguise. Their job is to lay the groundwork for Preservers to do their work, and cover up their mistakes. They are consummate role-players. From time to time it is hinted that known historical figures were really Facilitators acting out a part.

Joseph

Joseph is 15,000 years old as a cyborg. He was recruited by Budu when his village was wiped out by members of the Great Goat Cult, a fanatic religion in prehistory. Being from the Basque area of Spain, he is short, dark and also somewhat sinister looking. Joseph recruited many other cyborgs, including Mendoza. Having outlived everyone else he ever knew, including various mortal wives, Joseph regards Budu as his father, and eventually sees Mendoza as his daughter. After both disappear, Budu in the 11th century and Mendoza in the 19th, he too wants to know what happened to them. While not as committed as Lewis, he follows the clues Lewis finds, with disastrous results.

Porfirio

Although much younger than Joseph, Porfirio has something Joseph lacks - a family. He has been allowed to maintain contact with blood relatives descended from his brother. Often he presents himself to them as a long-lost uncle, or simply is allowed to work close by to keep an eye on them. During one such time he has to deal with Mendoza, who has been foisted on him while he runs an Inn in Cahuenga Pass, California, in the 1860's, so his Preservers can glean information from passing travelers and the local population. Ostensibly she is to gather plant species soon to become extinct in a years-long drought, but the Company fails to move her on once the drought hits. Porfirio has to deal with her moods, her night-time psychic fireworks, and eventually her disastrous encounter with someone who is involved in an unknown Company-related plot. Mendoza and a few other cyborgs disappear as a consequence, but Porfirio is allowed to stay free and monitor his family. Over a century later he is able to tell Joseph something of what happened to Mendoza.

Enforcers

Enforcers are genetically engineered cyborgs, created as killing machines for one purpose, to destroy the prehistoric Great Goat Cult which seemed to be preventing History from happening at all. Unfortunately, they can't be unmade once they accomplish their mission. They are 8 feet tall with helmet shaped heads, hugely strong, and fearless (all other cyborgs are programmed to flee danger). Programmed to kill all who offer violence to others, they are hard to control. Some want to extend their roles to keeping all humans in line. As long as their appearance can be explained away they can be used as soldiers, a role they love. Eventually they must be removed, however...

Budu

Budu is the Enforcer who recruited Joseph while killing the Great Goat Cult fanatics who killed Joseph's parents. Just before he disappears, he meets Joseph for the last time and forces information on him that eventually leads Joseph to discover the secret places where surplus, damaged and renegade cyborgs are held in tanks of fluid in suspended animation. Joseph hopes to find Budu and Mendoza in these places, but eventually he finds Budu's still viable remains elsewhere and transports them to one of the facilities in the hope that they can be re-animated.

Budu also recruited Labienus and Victor, the one in prehistory, the other in Anglo-Saxon Britain.

Adonai/Nicholas/Edward/Alec

Trying to replace the Enforcers with a breed of mortal who will be easy to control, and not inclined to hang around forever, the Company genetically engineers a series of identical individuals under the project name Adonai. In each case, the embryo is implanted in a mortal woman, and the child allowed to grow without knowing his origins. The first is Nicholas Harpole in Elizabethan times, who is Mendoza's doomed first love. The second is Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, a Victorian adventurer and secret agent who encounters Mendoza in California, suffering the same fate as Nicholas. The third is Alec Checkerfield, a 24th century rich kid who is able to hijack high-tech data systems, including Company data and a time machine. He also finds Mendoza and she falls for him all over again. Alec does not die, however. What happens to him is far worse...

The New Inklings

These are the 24th century geniuses who, taking their name from the original Inklings, design all the cyborgs and Adonai. To them it is just a game, a relief from the boredom of their lives, and license to indulge in pleasures from the past which are illegal for everybody else. However they too are being manipulated. The versions of Adonai all have a role to play in the business of Dr. Zeus, and what Alec Checkerfield accomplishes leaves them horrified beyond description.

Villains ?

Labienus and Nennius are old, old cyborgs who seem to wield much power behind the scenes. Labienus runs Company facilities at various times and is one of the inquisitors (small i) into Mendoza's debacle in California. Nennius coordinates some of Joseph's missions, and eventually leads Joseph and Lewis into a trap.

Suleyman is a former pirate, based in North Africa, who has built up a power base there and among a Muslim sect worldwide in the 22nd century. He believes that some cyborgs - possibly including Budu - are plotting to kill off mortals with new diseases, in order to take over in 2355. As an ally he can help Joseph when he goes on the run, but he may also wind up on the other side if Joseph joins with Budu.

Victor is a mystery. Sophisticated and gracious, he runs New World One when Mendoza first arrives there. In later stories he admits to being a 'problem solver', someone who does the really dirty work. He never takes off his gloves in company. He is friendly with Suleyman, but may have other motives. He admits to Joseph that he brought about Budu's final downfall, and knows where to find the body.

Homo Umbratilis

Homo Umbratilis, meaning Man of the Shadows, is the name of a third species of human. Small, pale and furtive, they hide from all contact with humans and cyborgs. They are mechanical and scientific geniuses, and may be the source of the technology that the Company uses. They have racial memory, being born with full recollection of the knowledge of their ancestors. They are not very creative, but can focus intensely on developing something, such as a disrupter field that paralyzes the cyborgs, whom they regard as enemies. Attempts to exploit these creatures, once they come to the attention of the Company, is an important element in the series' plot.

Paradoxes

These are endemic in time-travel stories, and usually provide the main plot twist. From the beginning of the Company stories, it is apparent even to Dr. Zeus that, in exploiting so-called recorded history, they may be responsible for history turning out the way it did, beginning with annihilating the Great Goat Cult so History as we know it could begin. As character after character turns against the Company, they are still unable to break free, their actions only making events turn to Dr. Zeus' advantage. But did the Company engineer their rebellion, or simply benefit from it ? Is Dr. Zeus manipulating events, or just making sure that what is known to have happened does happen, to safeguard its own destiny ? Only the things Dr. Zeus doesn't already know about can hurt it, but what does Dr. Zeus not know ?

Names

Dr. Zeus, besides being a play on Dr. Seuss, also represents the Greek God Zeus, who defeated his father Chronos, or Time.

The New Inklings are named for a group of intellectuals in pre-WW2 England, of whom the best known are C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.