by B. C. CHASE
Suddenly there was a giant splash and a wave washed over them. Two sets of serrated teeth clamped into Doctor Katz’s torso, bones cracking, and he was pulled up from above, lifting her with him. His eyes widened in shock and he released her, she splashing back into the swamp. Blood trickled down the pendant and dripped off the points of the star. He was in the jaws of an enormous, feathered dinosaur on two legs. One of its long arms with long claws reached up and tore his lower torso and legs off. Then it raised its neck and swallowed. Layla turned her head, backing away in the water before standing and tearing away as fast as her legs would carry her. She heard the dinosaur crack more bones and swallow. Then she felt a powerful footfall as the ground trembled. There was a shriek that grew into a roar as loud as a crack of thunder. She turned and saw the dinosaur pursuing her. She reached the edge of the forest and her toes sunk into the soft moss. The sparkling water with the beautiful, starry sky above was before her. The dinosaur had reached her in three massive bounds and swooped its jaws down for her. But it missed as she splashed into the water. She kicked and swam down toward the light she saw ahead in the depths, flashing and revolving. She pulled herself deeper, taking wide strokes with her arms and kicking as hard as she could. And then she reached it and she felt herself being drawn into the vortex of light.
Paradeisia Resort
“We made it! Whoo-hoo!” Adriaan exclaimed. The gondola was splashing up into the sunshine out of the water of the crater lake, like a breeching whale. Everyone was cheering and screaming in delight. The gondola swept up along the rail toward the steep cliff face where the beautiful waterfall that cascaded down from the high perch where the gleaming glass pyramid of the FlyRail Hub stood.
“So,” Henry said to Doctor Kaufmann. “I have one question.”
“What’s that?”
“If Jinkins terminated the universe, how are we here?”
“Are you saying Paradeisia was earth?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think that?”
“IntraWorld Capital. Intra means within. If the portal went to a different world Jinkins would have named the company InterWorld Capital.”
“You’re right. Every measurement we took in Paradeisia, especially astronomical observations, confirmed that it is earth. An ancient earth as compared to ours, but earth nonetheless.”
“So if he destroyed the universe, there should have been no earth for us to travel to.”
“That is theoretically true. But he must have understood the other possibility.”
“Which is?”
“That Paradeisia in that time and place was a diverged quantum universe from ours.”
“A diverged quantum universe?”
“Yes. We are in an intersection of space and time out of an infinite number of such intersections. This is called a quantum universe. We can trace this one through causality back the one which spawned it, but each universe spawns an infinite number of other universes and possibilities.”
“Huh.”
“Mathematically it makes sense.”
“Hmm.”
“Just be thankful you’re here and we’re alive!” Doctor Kaufmann said.
Doctor Pearce said, “I should probably tell you the Chinese took over the place while you were gone.”
When the gondola reached the platform on the FlyRail Hub, the doors opened to a group of Chinese Liberation Army soldiers and Sai Chu, the Chief Financial Officer of IntraWorld Capital. When they had all disembarked, Sai Chu, wearing a pressed suit, came forward and extended a hand to Henry, smiling, “Mr. Potter. It’s good to see you again. I must inform you that I am a representative of the government of the People’s Republic of China. I have served as Paradeisia’s CFO in an undercover capacity. There has been,” he hesitated, “a conspiracy between some of the highest officials of the USA and the PLC. General Fox has recalled the U.S. military to the mainland to assist with the recovery from the virus. We will require all of your cooperation in establishing some of the facts and correcting some of the wrongs.”
They were shut into separate rooms at the Paradeisia StarLine Resort, questioned for hours at a time, but served food from the resort and treated as if they were guests. They suspected among themselves that the officials had taken a gondola down into the lake. But of course it hadn’t gone where they expected. They had never left the lake. The portal was gone.
After several days, they received permission to visit the planetarium under guard. Sitting at the computers, Doctor Kaufmann said, “Yes, it’s gone.”
“I wonder how,” Henry said.
“It was projected from their collective mind. Since Jinkins destroyed their universe along with their mind, they can no longer project it into our universe. Or so I would guess. There is hardly any way we could verify that scientifically.”
“Yes, I should think so, particularly now that it’s gone.”
“Well,” Lady Shrewsbury looked around. “What a relief. I think that’s cause for celebration.”
The rain pattered lightly on the leaves around them. Henry and Aubrey were walking alone up the road from the hospital. The Chinese had insisted on another round of tests. Everyone else had ridden a bus, but Henry had asked Aubrey to walk with him. Two soldiers followed them from a distance.
“It’s cold,” she complained.
“Yes, sorry. Didn’t realize it would rain.”
“That’s okay.”
There was an awkward silence while she wondered what he wanted. Finally he said, “You mentioned you have a boyfriend.”
“Yeah,” she said demurely. “Had.”
“Does he know about your condition?”
“Yes. That’s why he dumped me.”
Henry clenched his teeth, “That’s a dastardly thing to do.”
“He wasn’t very nice, anyway,” she said. “I guess I have a habit of hooking up with sad cases.”
“I want to make sure the child is provided for. If you don’t mind, I’d like to set up a trust fund, or something.”
“But why?”
“I don’t want you to worry.”
She stopped and faced him, “I’m surprised.”
He stopped and looked at her quizzically, “Surprised?”
“Yes, I didn’t think you cared.”
“I do care. I care very much, actually.”
“Thank you, Henry,” she said, wrapped her arms around him, her head on his chest. Henry slowly enveloped her back in his arms and awkwardly patted her back.
“Aubrey," he breathed, his eyes still closed. "Are you warm?” Water ran down his face, dripping from his chin to her skin.
“Yep,” she said.
“Good,” he said, pulling away.”
She stood in the rain silently while he looked away. Her voice faltered as she said, “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Back and forth-like you can’t make up your mind! I’m giving myself to you and you—” she lost her voice.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
He said, “I haven’t earned what you offer. You might get hurt.”
She cried, “You mean you might get hurt!”
He was quiet, but the rain was falling more powerfully.
She stepped towards him, her eyes locked on his, “You're not trying to protect me! You're trying to protect yourself!”
“I'm protecting both of us!” he shouted. His eyes were filled with grief. “Don't you see? I can’t take your love because I can’t give any back!”
She said softly, “But that's more love than anyone has ever shown me. People have always told me ‘I love you’ and then taken what they wanted. But you…I feel like you really love me.” Her eyes were sad and pleading and she moved closer to him.
His voice cracked, “My father came from a very wealthy family, but he squandered all of it. He gambled away more money than he could ever possibly repay.” From his pocket, he withdrew a picture that had been ripped in half. What remained of the pictur
e showed a woman in an elegant gown. “When I was six, he took a pistol, looked at me, and shot my mother.” His face was anguished. He spoke darkly, “They thought they loved each other.” He drew a breath, his voice like a reservoir beginning to break “I never saw love that didn’t end in pain! So don’t tell me I love you! There’s no such thing!”
Tears streamed down his cheeks. She said, “I’ve been hurt, too, but I know one thing about love. True love never gives up. And I won’t give up on you. I’ll love you as long as it takes because I know you love me, too.” She turned and started to trudge through the rain, alone. She made it to the top of the hill and heard splashing footsteps behind her. Henry jogged up and slowed as he reached her, “You’re right, of course. I’d do anything for you.” He reached around her and pulled her body against his. She searched his eyes. Their breath came in white puffs. Slowly, his face lowered. She closed her eyes, their lips so close their breaths tingled their skin. Her lips tingled as he pressed his to them. He said, “I do love you, Aubrey. I love you very much.”
Staring out a window in a restaurant on the top floor of the hotel, they could see the PLC packing up, supply boat after supply boat going and coming to and from the large destroyers and aircraft carriers visible in the distance on the water. “Looks like they’re leaving,” Nimitz said.
Aubrey said, “Maybe they’ll let us leave soon.”
Sai Chu’s voice from behind them said, “We are leaving.”
They turned around to see him standing there, grinning pleasantly. “Our investigation is complete. You will soon have your island to yourselves again.”
“Well, that’s welcome news!” Lady Shrewsbury said.
“Indeed so,” Henry said.
“So what are we going to do?”
Henry turned and gazed out the window at the pristine water, the beautiful greenery, the pleasure boats waiting at the docks. “Well,” he said, “it’s not paradise and we’re not perfect by any means, but I think,” he smiled, “if we do our best, we can make it work!”
Layla
Layla saw the surface of the water above and she struck for it with all her might. In a shroud of bubbles, she swam. Her lungs heaved for air. Her head throbbed. But just as she neared the surface, she could not hold back anymore and her mouth opened involuntarily, drawing in a flood of water. She choked in in more and more water, bubbles from her last air dancing up toward the surface. She reached up for it in one, last attempt, then closed her eyes, succumbing to her inevitable fate.
A hand gripped hers. She was being pulled up. She splashed out of the water. Sunlight poured down from the entrance to the sinkhole high, high above. She coughed, gulped in air, and coughed more. Several hands drew her out of the water and she heard excited chatter. She was laid out on flat rock and coughed, vomiting up water. When she had finally caught her breath, she lay back on the rock. A concerned face leaned down over her. She recognized him. “Yamirawa!” she breathed, disbelieving.
He smiled in a kind of childish way. Two Yanomamo women smiled over her, touching her skin, laughing. She would have been embarrassed by her lack of clothes, but her rescuers wore little more. Layla didn’t know what to think. Why had they come to look for her? But what difference did it make? She was alive, and she laughed for joy.
24 Oakland Street
“Dad! DAAAD!” Jeffery’s voice came from the bedroom.
Gary smiled at Stacey and handed her the whimpering baby he had been closely holding. “The storm. I’ll go check on him.”
“Thanks,” Stacey said.
He reached his son’s room, the lightning outside flashing through the blinds and rattling the window. He sat down on the side of his son’s bed. Jeffery’s head was under the comforter.
“Jeff?”
The boy pulled the duvet down and peeped up at his father. “I’m scared. Of the storm.”
The thunder roared once again, seemingly ready to shake the house toin a pile of sticks.
Gary patted his son’s arm, “Don’t worry.” He smiled, “I’ll tell you a secret.”
“What’s that?”
He leaned down and said in his son’s ear, “That’s God’s thunder.” He sat up.
For a moment his son looked pensive. Then he beamed.
“You all right, now?”
Jeffery nodded.
“Okay.” Gary stood and walked to the door, but his son’s voice stopped him, “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“You can call me Jeffery. I don’t think I’m ready to be grown up yet.”
“Okay, you got it. Goodnight, Jeffery.”
“Goodnight, dad.”
The Oval Office
“Mr. President, you sent for me?”
“Yes,” President Fox said. “Please sit down.”
Karen Harrington took a seat in the sofa across from the President. She smoothed her skirt and readied her pad and pen.
He said, “You can put that down, Karen.”
She set the implements aside.
“So a video came by my desk the other day. From the United Nations security cameras, from two years ago. In it an orangutan was seen running through the lobby and out the doors.”
Karen raised her eyebrows.
“Now I realize it’s been a long time and a lot has changed, not the least of which is the fact that Guy Giordano was able to turn you back into a person, thank God.”
She smiled, “Yes, thank God.”
He shook his head, “Oh that was an awful time. Cleaning up Baltimore, releasing the cure, everything.”
“Yes.”
“All behind us.”
“Yes.”
“Well, anyway, in the video an orangutan was seen fleeing the United Nations. This would have been the same day Abael was shot. The same day those alien things showed up and scared the bejeebies out of everybody.”
“Yes.”
“Well, the point is, if there were to be an investigation... Would I need to use one of my executive pardons?”
“Can an orangutan be convicted of a crime, Mr. President?”
He grinned, “I wouldn’t think so.”
She smiled, “Then you shouldn’t need to use a pardon.”
He winked, “Well, just for the record, it would be there for the orangutan if she needed it. A patriot like that certainly deserves one, orangutan or not.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Doctor Ming-Zhen stood in front of the classroom. Early morning sunlight streamed in through the windows at the back of the room. The bright, young faces of his pupils sat, waiting expectantly for him to speak. The email on his screen read: “We regret to inform you that your request to view the video footage from the original Lake Vostok mission cannot be delivered. The video is no longer available.” So he would never see what had really happened in that wretched lake. He shut the screen down and opened the book on this desk. He looked at the picture: a graphic of deinocheirus with an outline of a man beside it for size.
He addressed his class: “Welcome to the first day of your time at the Department of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology. We study the past—a past we cannot see and cannot experience. All we can do is peek through the windows that the earth provides: fossils, geology, and so forth. These windows are usually a bit opaque. Paleontology is not a science of absolutes. It’s a science of discovery and imagination. The important thing to remember is that as paleontologists, we are explorers and dreamers. It is not our job to know everything about the past with absolute certainty—that’s impossible. There will always be disagreement. There will always be debate. Sometimes you will find out you were wrong. As you are probably aware, I was wrong more than once. What’s important, though, is that you never lose your heart for learning and keep an open mind. This year and in the years to come you will make amazing discoveries. Some of them just might change everything you thought you knew. Don’t miss your chance to discover them because you think they are impossi
ble. Make it your business to find the impossible. Make it your mission to unveil the inscrutable, to chart the new territory, to see further than anyone ever has. The impossible is the most exciting thing anyone has ever discovered, and every time someone does, it changes the world, forever.”
4085 Woodbridge Street
Wesley and Kelle stood over the cup on the table.
“Are you ready?” Kelle asked.
“Yeah. Let’s do this,” Wesley smiled.
She pulled out the stick. They laughed. He exclaimed, “Can you believe it?” The indicator display read “pregnant.”
-------------------------------------
Follow Paradeisia on Facebook at
facebook.com/paradeisia
