Desmond blew out a long breath of air. After contemplating this for a few moments, he asked, “Did you happen to look up my mom? Do you know if she’s alive?”
Armando shook his head. “I didn’t think to do that. I’d be happy to, if you’d like.” He nodded down toward the laptop. “If she’s alive, I could arrange for you to speak to her.”
Desmond glanced at Infinity. “I… I don’t know. Maybe I need some time to think about that. It wouldn’t really be her, would it?”
“Well, yes and no. Depends on how you look at it. Either way, it’s hard to predict how it would affect her to meet the son she lost ten years ago.” Armando shook his head. “If you decide you’d like me to look into it, just let me know.”
Infinity stared at the laptop, and her stomach started to tighten. “Why’d you bring that computer in here?”
Armando leveled his gaze at her. “Because, kiddo, I have taken the liberty of setting up a video chat for you. I assumed you’d be okay with it.”
Her stomach tightened even more. “A video chat with who?”
“Her name is Passerina. She was a little confused when I first contacted her. But she has been following the news enough over the last year and a half to understand the concept of bridging. She’d like to meet you.”
Infinity glared at him. “You assumed I’d be okay with this?”
Armando’s face remained impassive. “You’re quite fortunate to have this option. Desmond and I do not.” He nodded at the laptop on the bed. “May I? She’s actually waiting as we speak.”
Infinity turned to Desmond. He shrugged and said, “What could it hurt?”
She closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply. She had lived through a lot of screwed-up days in her thirty-one years, but this one just might top them all. She took a seat on the bed beside the laptop, suddenly feeling self-conscious about her appearance. She ran a hand over her scalp and looked up at Armando. Yesterday he had been wearing a helmet like the ones the Marines had been wearing, but now she could see the top of his head. “You just bridged yesterday,” she said. “How is it you still have your hair?”
Armando smiled and patted his head. “This hair isn’t actually mine. I realized months ago when we started testing the bridging device that without hair I resemble a featherless turkey. So I had this made.” He tugged on the hairpiece, lifting it off his head slightly so to prove it was fake. He smiled again. “If I didn’t know you better, kiddo, I’d say you were stalling.”
She gritted her teeth and glared at the computer. “Fine, let’s get this over with.”
Armando kneeled by the bed and opened the laptop. The screen lit up immediately. “The digital technology on this world is quite fascinating, really,” he said. “This computer’s operating system has had twenty-one years to develop in a separate timeline, and these people have come up with some truly innovative interface conventions. It seems that being isolated from the rest of the world due to red howler fever had an influence on—”
“Armando,” Infinity said. “You know I don’t give a fistful of farts about computers. I’m tired. Let’s do this if we’re gonna do it.”
He nodded. “Yes. Yes indeed.” He turned the computer toward himself and tapped a few times on the screen with his finger. A few seconds later, he smiled broadly. “Mrs. Stroud! Thank you for your patience. We are now ready on this end, if you are ready there.”
“I’m as ready as I can be,” a nervous voice said through the laptop’s tiny speakers.
“Very well. Then it’s my pleasure to introduce you to Passerina Fowler. For the last six years, she’s been known as Infinity.” He turned the laptop toward her.
Infinity stared at the woman on the screen and frowned. Perhaps Armando had made a mistake. The woman staring back at her was strikingly beautiful. She was wearing makeup. Infinity had never worn makeup in her life. The woman’s hair was brown and short, styled perfectly to frame her face. Infinity’s hair, during the few times she’d given it a chance to grow out, had been blonde. And this woman had no scars or bruises—no splotches of dirt or grime or blood.
The woman smiled. “It really is you. I mean… you’re me!”
Infinity still couldn’t see it. This woman looked nothing like her. She looked like those women on the television, or in a magazine.
“Mr. Doyle has told me all about you,” the woman said. “He says you’re a real hero, that you’ve saved countless lives. I was kind of intimidated by the idea of meeting you. I’ve never done anything like that.” She forced a brief laugh. “I mean, I have a fit when I break a fingernail!”
Infinity saw it now, in the woman’s eyes. Her face was a little puffy, but the eyes—they were Infinity’s own eyes.
“I have to admit,” said the woman, “I’m feeling proud right now. Proud to know that I might actually be capable of the amazing things you’ve done.”
Infinity tried swallowing, but her mouth was too dry. “Your last name is Stroud?”
“Yes, I took my husband’s last name.” The woman turned and looked at something off screen. “Come on, honey. It’s okay.” Another figure appeared on the screen, a little boy, and the woman hoisted him onto her lap. The boy appeared to be about five years old. “I’d like you to meet my son Maslin,” said the woman, looking down at her son. “Can you say hello, Maslin?”
Infinity realized she had stopped breathing, and she sucked in a lungful of air.
“Hi,” Maslin said. “What happened to your hair?”
Passerina Stroud put her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Maslin, that’s not polite.”
Infinity smiled. Her eyes were starting to water, so she wiped them with her thumb.
“Sorry,” Maslin said, looking at the screen. “I like your head that way. It makes you look strong. Mommy, you should make your head bald too.”
The woman laughed nervously as she lowered the boy to the floor. “Maybe I will, sweetheart. You can go play now.”
Maslin turned to the screen, only the top of his head visible. He raised a hand and waved. “Bye!”
“Bye, Maslin,” said Infinity.
“I apologize,” the woman said. “He’s all boy.”
Infinity nodded. There were things she wanted to know, but she was finding it hard to speak. Finally, she managed to say, “Do you mind if I ask some questions?”
“Of course not.”
Infinity straightened and smoothed the top of her sterile paper shirt, unsure how much of it the woman could even see. She didn’t like feeling rough in the presence of this polished woman. Armando should have given her some time to comprehend the weight of this conversation before opening the damn laptop. “Our worlds diverged twenty-one years ago,” Infinity said. “From that point on we were on different timelines. Do you understand how that works?”
The woman nodded. “Yes. I’ve been following the developments regarding bridging technology.”
“Right, well, about four years after our timelines diverged, I got tired of living at home, and I ran away. I never went back. Did you run away, too?”
The woman gazed at her thoughtfully. “I remember considering it. But I never acted on it. I lived at home with Mom and Dad until I moved to Tempe for college.”
Infinity stared at her. “You went to college?”
“Yes. BA in accounting. I've been a stay-at-home mom since Maslin was born, though. He’ll start school in the fall, and then I’ll be going back to work.”
An accountant? Infinity didn’t even know what an accountant did. “Um, Mom and Dad—are they still alive?”
The woman smiled. “Yes. Red howler fever didn’t hit Phoenix as hard as some other areas—they say because it’s so dry here.” She then frowned. “What about on your own Earth? I mean, before what happened to it. Were Mom and Dad still alive there? Were they able to bridge off the world with you?”
Infinity closed her eyes for a moment. She then opened them and shook her head. “I never returned home after I left at fourteen. I d
on’t know if they were alive.”
The woman furrowed her brows. What was going through her mind? Was she wondering how in the hell someone could leave home at fourteen and never even check in on her own parents? “I’m sorry,” she said. “Isn’t it amazing how differently our lives have turned out?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I can’t really imagine—”
Someone knocked sharply. “Mr. Doyle!”
Desmond got up and opened the door. A tech wearing a bio-suit was standing there, his eyes wide and his rhythmic breathing fogging his faceplate.
“Mr. Doyle, we’ve got a situation in the bridging chamber! Dr. Fornas says you need to come immediately. All three of you, actually. It’s urgent.”
Infinity turned back to the computer. “Sorry, I have to go.”
The woman was frowning. “Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know,” said Infinity. “Something’s come up.” Armando reached over to shut the laptop, but Infinity grabbed his hand to stop him. “It was nice meeting you. Maybe we can talk again soon.”
“Okay. Yes, it was nice. Thank you for—”
Armando shut the laptop and tucked it under his arm. They all followed the tech out of the room, through the main med lab, and into the bridging chamber viewing room. They weaved their way past several more bio-suited techs and joined Fornas in front of the viewing window.
Infinity stared into the chamber. Beyond the window, two men and a woman were staring back at her. All three of them had human-like faces, but the rest of their bodies suggested they were not human at all.
4
Strangers
April 10 - 4:13 PM
Desmond stared at the three beings in the bridging chamber. He had no doubt that they were intelligent. One glance told him that. He could see it not only in the way they looked back at him inquisitively, but also in their striking body ornamentation and grooming. They were nearly human in structure, except that black fur covered the creatures’ entire bodies, fine and short like that of a Labrador retriever puppy. Portions of the fur were dyed with various colors, arranged in symmetrical patterns that tended to emphasize the beings’ sturdy muscularity.
The creatures were nude except for minimalist rope-like garments worn around their waists, barely covering their genitals. These garments appeared to be made of dyed leather, and each being's was of a different design. One of the creatures was clearly a female, with firm-looking breasts much larger than those on the males. Her breasts were completely covered in fur except for the nipples.
Desmond’s eyes were drawn back to the strangers’ faces. All three of them were standing motionless, staring through the viewing window at the confused humans. At first, Desmond thought their faces were hairless, but when he looked more closely, he noticed a velvety sheen of fine hairs covering even their noses and the skin around their eyes. As with humans, the hair on their scalps was longer, but it was trimmed neatly to a length of about an inch. Each of the creatures had a distinctive pattern dyed into their scalp hair, complementing the dye patterns on the rest of their body.
The beings’ faces were slightly broader than most human faces. Moreover, their entire bodies were stockier, with broader shoulders and stronger-looking arms. The female was slightly shorter than the two males but just as muscular.
“How did they get here?” Armando said, breaking the silence.
It seemed obvious to Desmond that the creatures had bridged in, although he had no idea how. Also, where did they come from? And what did they want?
“Have you ever had anyone bridge into this chamber like this before?” Infinity asked.
“Absolutely not,” Fornas replied. “They must have bridged here from another version of Earth that has a bridging device in this same location.”
“That’s very unlikely,” Armando said. “This facility has only been here a few months. The SafeTrek facility on our own version of Earth had only existed in this location for six years. That means that these people would have to have bridged from a world that diverged from ours less than six years ago. I don’t see how people so strikingly different from us could have evolved in only six years.”
The female on the other side of the window turned to the two males and started speaking to them.
“Can you turn on the comm system so we can hear them?” Desmond asked.
Fornas pressed a button on the wall. A voice came over the comm abruptly as one of the males responded to the female. His voice was higher-pitched than Desmond had expected based on the thickness of his body, but it still sounded very human. The language was completely foreign, though, and spoken at such a fast pace that Desmond probably wouldn’t have been able to catch the meaning even if the creature had been speaking English.
The female spoke again, apparently cutting the male off, her words blasting out like a recording on triple speed.
“This is most fascinating!” Armando exclaimed.
All at once, the three beings looked up at the speaker in the bridging chamber ceiling. One of the males turned to the humans, and he actually appeared to be smiling. He held up his arm and pointed to a device strapped to his forearm. He then gestured to his mouth and spit out a rapid sequence of words while doing a rolling motion near his mouth with his hand.
“He wants us to keep speaking,” Desmond said.
The creature heard this and his smile broadened. He rolled his hand near his mouth again.
“Do you understand what we’re saying?” asked Dr. Fornas.
The male showed no signs of understanding, but he kept beckoning them to continue speaking. He pointed again at the device on his arm. The gadget was about six inches long and three inches wide, with four blocky segments of varying thicknesses. Desmond then noticed that each of the three strangers had one of these devices strapped to their left arm, and all three devices were forest green in color.
“You want us to keep speaking to you, don’t you?” Desmond asked, looking directly at the male who had been gesturing. “You want us to speak because you’re analyzing our speech. The more we speak, the more your devices learn to translate. You want to be able to speak back to us.”
The man put a finger to his device and pressed something. A voice came from the device. “You… speak.” The voice was a simulation of Desmond’s own voice.
“Okay, yes, I will speak to you,” Desmond said. “We will all speak to you.” He turned to the others in the viewing room, all of whom were eyeing him with perplexed looks. “I think we should do it—we should each talk a bit, one at a time,” he said. “It probably doesn’t matter much what you say. Tell a story, explain your theory of the meaning of life, recite a poem. The more you say, the better their devices will be able to translate English. Do you mind if I begin?”
Fornas simply nodded, still looking perplexed.
Desmond turned back to the three beings. “My friends and I welcome you to this world. I should explain that I’ve had a very bad day. This morning, the world I had been living on for the past year and a half began to self-destruct. The structure we had modified to be our living quarters was destroyed by large rocks shaken loose by an earthquake. During the destruction, four of my friends were killed, including a young child.”
He proceeded to explain the rest of the day's events, including their narrow escape from the collapsing planet and what they had learned so far about their new home. When he finally paused, the male on the other side of the window pointed at the device on his arm and then gestured for him to continue. Desmond turned to Infinity. “Your turn.”
The device on the creature’s wrist spoke again. “Yes, you talk. Talk more.”
“That’s extraordinary!” said Dr. Fornas. “Would you mind if I take my turn next?”
“Please,” Infinity said. “I’m not much of a talker anyway.”
Fornas began summarizing the last few years of his life, focusing on how everything had changed after a county sheriff found twenty strangers wandering naked in a national forest in Southern Mi
ssouri. Those strangers, including Armando Doyle, claimed to have traveled to this world from an alternate version of Earth—an alternate timeline. The strangers were very convincing, and the entire nation became enthralled by them when Armando provided precise coordinates for locating a radio signal being transmitted by an alien civilization—a signal that turned out to actually exist. Dr. Fornas explained how he had volunteered to head up a team to look into the implications of the radio signal and the strangers’ intriguing stories. The team eventually began to cautiously analyze the Outlanders’ instructions for making a bridging device. They then embarked on a massive endeavor to decode the supposed ‘key’ to unlocking the true potential of bridging technology, a key that consisted of nine hundred symbols tattooed on Armando’s back.
When Fornas mentioned the tattoos, Armando turned around and lifted his shirt, revealing about half of the nine hundred symbols. This apparently generated considerable excitement among the strangers, who spoke rapidly to each other for a few seconds.
When Fornas had finished his story, the being in the bridging chamber again gestured for more, so Armando took a turn, adding to the story Desmond and Dr. Fornas had started. He started with how he had become the CEO of the first bridging center on his own version of Earth. This endeavor had gone smoothly until it was discovered that the bridging devices—by this time there were seven worldwide—had been creating a previously undiscovered heavy particle. Millions of these particles had been drifting through the Earth's mantle and collecting at the planet's core. They steadily eroded the core until the damage was irreversible, ultimately causing the planet's collapse, killing over eight billion people.
Armando continued, explaining how a desperate attempt had been made to save a small portion of the human species by bridging colonies to alternate worlds. This effort had continued until the last possible moments. When it was time to bridge out the final colony, the bridging device failed in the process of bridging out the first group of twenty, sending the group to an unknown destination, presumably lost forever. Desmond and Infinity happened to be in this group. Armando and his techs managed to get the bridging device back in working order long enough to bridge out one more group—the twenty people who had appeared on this very world and were found wandering naked in the national forest.
The Trial of Extinction Page 4
