“What’s in the notebook?” She decided to ignore the hidden emotion, whatever that was about. It was too much to think that he was drawn to her too, despite Kat’s teasing about the moonlit walk. She had no illusions of romance here. Lexil was fascinated by Dani-the-time-disturbance, and nothing more.
He was flipping through the notebook. It looked ordinary enough on the outside. Among all the other notebooks visible in the lab—most of them in a pile around Lexil’s work area—this one wasn’t anything special. It was a nondescript gray with a black binding. The only thing that marked it was his name on the front cover, and the words, “Timestream Data.”
“Most of what is in here is about the ripples and blips that have occurred since your event. A few pages in the beginning are about things that stemmed from other disturbances, but almost everything you see here will not exist in the original, ‘right’ timestream. I presume that the other Lexil will have done other research in the meantime—he’s pretty obsessed with research, to be honest—but it won’t be the same stuff that’s in here.”
“What all have you discovered directly as a result of ‘my event,’ as you call it?”
“The biggest thing is that the VAO converters can actually remove objects from the timestream. Evidence that it needs to be stopped.” He laughed wryly. “I’ve got all that really vital stuff boxed in red penstrokes, for all the good it will do when it’s gone.”
“So none of that will be available after we fix it.”
“Right. Remove the original disturbance, and you don’t have the evidence that it causes any damage, so there’s nothing to write in my notebook.”
“Okay, so we lose that. What won’t be lost?”
He thought about it. “We will still have our sensors, and much of the evidence from past ripples. Kat and Marak’s non-meeting wasn’t the first incident; it was just the one that caused the biggest changes.”
“And the Dani that hasn’t been alarmed by Jored’s absence will still have data files from Anders, ideas from talking with Kat and Marak, and the research the high school kids are going to be doing tomorrow. I think all that would have happened even if I hadn’t met you two.”
“We could check some of those events to see,” Lexil said.
Dr. Seebak had been listening quietly to their conversation. “You young people work on that. I’ll get back to my research over here.” He dove back down among his screens and notebooks.
“I can’t check on your meetings with Kat and Marak. Whenever you meet with them, there are ripples.”
“Because I always played with Jored when I saw them.”
“That would do it. So we can’t assume or confirm any information you might have gained from those visits. But let’s try the meeting with the high schoolers. When did it happen?” He sat down opposite the viewwall, waving at it to bring up the time ripples view. A few quick strokes and he had zeroed in on the school.
“I met with them yesterday, from 10 o’clock till a little before noon.”
Lexil narrowed the third axis to that interval. There were no blips, only a very faint green shimmer. “Looks good. That meeting would have happened anyway.”
“Okay, so, if my other-timestream self would know some of this, I’ll know it when I get there too, right?”
“Yes, you should.”
“But anything I’ve learned from you and anything I’ve researched because of conversations we’ve had, I won’t remember. Which brings me to the idea Kat and Marak and I had. We were thinking that when we do the restoration, I could stay inside the observation box with some key pieces of information and…”
Lexil was shaking his head, but it was Dr. Seebak who stood up and spoke. “You must not!” he said, urgently.
Dani blinked. “Why not?”
“While we were experimenting yesterday, something a little unexpected happened.” Lexil gestured toward the opposite corner of the lab. “I should show you our setup later. We were working on replacing objects that had been removed from the timestream. At first, we kept the environment exactly the same, whether the object was there or not. The only things we changed were the time settings: the beginning of the replacement and the duration. But when we got that part figured out—”
“You solved it? Does that mean we can definitely repair the timestream?” Dani caught her breath, wanting to make sure she had heard correctly. Yesterday, she’d been talking with Kat and Marak, tossing around ideas about how to make the investigation move forward after the timestream repair. They’d kept it matter-of-fact, casually accepting the possibility of a miracle. Given that, it was hard to explain the lump she now felt in her chest. As she realized it would actually happen, an unexpected feeling of yearning flooded over her. She would get to see Jored again, hear his giggles, hold him in her arms.
Dr. Seebak had walked over to join them. He put a hand on her shoulder. “He found a way to make it happen, Dani.”
Lexil nodded. “The only thing left is to automate it, so it can be done on your machines with a simple installation program.”
She closed her eyes, overwhelmed with gratitude.
They gave her a moment to recover. That was nice of them, but she wanted to know more. Lexil had said something unusual happened. Would it interfere with getting Jored back? Would it complicate things? “Lexil, what were you saying? What was the unexpected thing you going to tell me about before?”
“Well, we started making changes to the environment, keyed to whether the object was there or not. We wanted to simulate the circumstances that surrounded our real problem. Let’s go back there so I can show you.”
As they walked back to the corner of the lab, he continued. “I set up a mechanism that would eject a marble through a slot, but only if the object was resting on this plate during the time interval I had specified in the program. It worked.”
They had reached the experimental set up. Dani was amused by the multiple spray paint patterns on the panels arranged against the wall. They almost looked artistic. There were several dozen, some with full spray patterns, some with empty spots in the center. One had a scorched area, with parts if it burned completely through the panel. She pointed to it. “Is this the unexpected one? It looks a little alarming.”
“No, we solved that one. Good thing, or it would have been alarming indeed. You’d have had a burned padlock, and maybe a burned gate as well! That only happens when the object is sent back to a time where it already exists.”
“What’s the concern, then?”
“The concern is with the time ripples. We wanted to find out what happened to a secondary object—or person, but we didn’t try that—that had been displaced because of the first object’s existence or non-existence. We placed the object on this plate.” As he talked, he pointed. “Its weight triggered this mechanism here, and the marble was released through this slot, to fall into this cup.”
“Okay.” Dani was following fine, so far.
“We left it there, then used your technique”—he handed her a copy of the research paper she had helped with—“to blank it from the timestream.”
As she took the paper, she noticed that it was heavily underlined and highlighted. “Glad I could be of some assistance!” she said.
“Oh, no doubt! Excellent work, by the way. Not sure what part of the research was yours, but it’s pretty impressive to have your name on a paper like this as an undergrad.”
“I was right in there, in the thick of it.”
“Good job! Anyway, the marble was in the cup when the object was there. Later, when we blanked the object, the marble was up above, unreleased from its initial position. After I restored the object, the marble was back in the cup again.”
“Sounds good, so far. What’s the catch?”
“Just to change things up a bit, we moved the release mechanism over here, so the marble would be released into the chronetic shielding of the time sensor device—same environment as your observation boxes, at the institute.”
“And?”
“Initially, the marble was in the cup, inside the shielding. After the blank, it was up above, behind the slot. But when we replaced the object, we found two marbles, one in the cup, and one up above.”
“Oh! Because the marble inside the shielding wasn’t affected by the change you made when you replaced the object.”
“Exactly. And it turned out that both marbles were altered in their basic structure, although we aren’t exactly sure how. Something to do with the Law of Conservation of Matter. They each only half-existed, in a sense. When we measured their masses, each was only half as massive and half as dense as it had been before.” He looked at her earnestly, and he spoke very deliberately. “If that were a person in the box, we have no idea what could come of the duplication. We wouldn’t want that to happen to you.”
“Probably not a good way to lose weight?” She made an attempt at levity.
“Dani, don’t.”
“Not funny?” She looked at him sheepishly.
“Look,” he said. “I’m just going to be blunt with you, no matter how you may feel about it. You can’t take this lightly. You’re going to be doing something that could be dangerous, and a lot depends on it. Jored’s existence. The integrity of the whole timestream. It’s a big deal, okay?”
“I know that!” She wasn’t trying to make it seem less important. What had made him so sensitive all of a sudden? Wait. What was this he was saying?
“…already fighting this sense of loss because I won’t know you—won’t remember even meeting you!—after we do this thing. I know you feel nothing for me, but I keep hoping, if you keep yourself alive, we might encounter each other in the other timestream too. We might have time to get to know each other, to see if…if…” He stopped suddenly, looking uncomfortable. “I really didn’t mean to say all that.”
“Uh…I don’t know how to respond to that.” A sense of loss? Apparently, she had been wrong about him being attracted! But here he was, saying anything they found here was bound to end, and in the same breath saying he didn’t want it to.
“You don’t have to respond at all, other than to promise to be careful.”
“No, I know, and I will. But I mean…” Spit it out, Dani, she told herself. Just say it. Don’t run from it like you have every other relationship since Jhon dumped you. “I mean, you’re wrong about the other part.”
“Which other part?”
“The part about my feelings for you.”
“Oh.” His eyes brightened. “Really?”
That right there—that look of surprised delight—that would have been enough to charm her. The realization that it was Dani herself who caused the delight put it right over the top. “You doing anything important? Want to go for a walk?” she asked.
They both knew he was, in fact, doing something very important. But for the moment it didn’t really matter.
She was vaguely aware of an amused and not at all surprised Dr. Seebak watching them go, but all her attention was on Lexil.
27
Revelation
SEEBAK LABORATORY, Vashon Island, WA. 1130, Sunday, June 11, 2215.
Outside the lab, Lexil noted that the clouds were clearing. The day promised to be a warm one, another in a string of sunny days. In the Pacific Northwest, a day was considered “clear” if the cloud cover burned off for part of the day. Completely cloudless days might occur for a day or two during the summer months, but not usually in mid-June. Summer had not yet arrived in the Pacific Northwest, but the sunlight filtering through the leaves of the madrona trees held promise.
As Lexil and Dani walked along the trail through the woods, the branches brushed their sides, gently coaxing them closer together. So far, they hadn’t said anything. He assumed that she, like he, needed a little time to process this new possibility. His thoughts had already run the same course several times. He pictured them together, working side by side, excited by new discoveries, laughing unself-consciously just as they had that first day. Could it be that it was only three days ago? He shook his head, marveling how quickly he’d abandoned his practical decision to avoid relationships. Three times since they had left the lab, he had indulged in thoughts of companionship and tenderness, and three times, he had stopped himself abruptly with the realization that this relationship, more certainly than any other in history, was bound to end. It had to, if they were to rescue the timestream.
And each time he came to that realization, he slipped right back into wondering what could develop between them if this were the true timestream and they didn’t have to worry about all that. Where would it lead? Where could it lead?
Dani spoke first. “We can’t just ignore this, can we?”
“I know I can’t. I’ve been trying, actually.” He realized that might sound as if he didn’t want to be with her, which was exactly the opposite of what he thought. He felt the need to explain. “I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care about Jored. I was worried it would trivialize what we were doing to help him, if I told you how I felt about you. But no, we can’t ignore it. And I don’t want to.”
Almost unconsciously, they found their hands connecting, first with a brush, and then with a feeling of belonging together. They walked along in silence for a few more moments. He hoped she felt the same way. He worried a little about her silence.
He stopped in the middle of the path. She looked over at him questioningly. How could he put this? He struggled for the right words. He had to know. “Dani, if this whole timestream mess weren’t an issue, if we were just two people who met and found a common interest in science, who went outside to enjoy a pleasant walk on a sunny day, who discovered…. Would you let me kiss you?”
The suddenness of his request took them both by surprise, but he saw his answer in her smile and tenderly, hesitantly, brushed her hair back from her face. As he leaned in closer, she closed her eyes and tilted up her chin. The first touch of their lips was like electricity finding ground, like atoms bonding covalently. He went back for more, and all at once it was her seeking him, her arms across his broad shoulders, her palms gripping the back of his head, pulling him toward her. His fantasies about a perfect partner for his life’s work gave way to other, stronger yearnings.
Abruptly, she pulled back. “If!” she said, in a frustrated tone. “If we had no worries, no obligations, if you weren’t working on solving a problem that has stolen a little boy and threatens the whole timestream, if we were actually two people who could decide things based on our feelings and nothing more. If.”
“What?” He shook his head, trying to clear it.
“In another world, without so much depending on us…yeah. But don’t you see? We can’t. And it wouldn’t last anyway.”
He felt miserable, frustrated. More than he wanted her, he wanted their relationship to be founded in honesty, not this false set of circumstances and events. He knew, without going back into the lab to look on the viewwall, that there were time disturbance ripples surrounding them, there in the filtered sunlight, with the tingle of her lips still fresh on his.
They stood for a few moments, avoiding each other’s gaze. He hated the thought of returning to the lab to work on the one thing driving a wedge between them, but there was no question that it had to be done. Nobody else in the world was even aware of it. Nobody else in the world could fix it. He wrestled through conflicting emotions, but ended up where he had known he would. He looked up at Dani just as she looked up at him, and their eyes met.
Lexil nodded and gestured toward the lab. “Shall we get back to work?”
Back inside, he was pleased to see how quickly Dani caught on. Soon she was setting up separate trials and recording the results alongside his own efforts. It doubled their speed, but the automation process was challenging enough that it took several hours to begin working properly.
Doc hadn’t said a word when they came back to the lab in a much different frame of mind than when they left it. He noticed their intensity, though, and when they
started running into complications, he pitched in and monitored the sensors as they ran each trial. They didn’t even take time for lunch; Doc brought out a tray of fruit and cheese, and they snacked while they worked.
Finally, with repeated successes, assuring them the timing of the automation process was correct to the millisecond, it was time to make the device that would alter the settings on Dani’s scanner at the institute. “Do you know the file structure on the scanning stations?” Lexil asked her.
“Do you need the specific file structure?” She looked worried. “I’ve never been able to get to that from my control screens. I mean, I can give you a rough idea, but not the specific path names.”
He pondered that. If he could figure out a way to be there when she inserted the device, he could find his way to the right path, but he dare not let anyone at the institute see his name. Entering through the security gate would pretty much ensure that they would make the connection between Lexil Myles and Nicah Myles, his father, who had died in the same accident that put his mother into a coma. But perhaps there was a way around that difficulty. “I will need it, but I might be able to give you something to extract that information for me. It will mean another day’s delay, though.”
“Can we afford that?”
“We’ll have to hope so.” He stretched. “Help me with this extraction program, and then we’ll take a break.”
Later, after the work was done, he invited her into the house.
“Is it okay if I look through your lab notebook?” she asked. “I know I won’t remember any of it any more than you will, but I’m curious about how you first began analyzing this, and how you arrived at your conclusions. What were you thinking?”
“Sure, you can look. Actually, I can do more than that. I can make you a copy.”
“Really? How do you do that?”
He had to laugh at her astonishment. He was aware that outside the Vashon lab, paper records were almost unheard of. “We keep a lot of notes, and sometimes we have to look at each other’s numbers.”
A Chronetic Memory (The Chronography Records Book 1) Page 19
