Project J

by Sean Brandywine

  “I’m Hans Buerer. I’m a research assistant on Project J. Dr. Fielding tells me that you are now cleared to our little secret. He asked that I help you to access any records you want.”

  “Hello, Dr. Buerer. I’m Tamara Graves. Nice to meet you.”

  Stepping in, he offered his hand. It was a very weak handshake, she noted, almost feminine.

  “Please, have a seat,” she told him.

  “Thank you. If there is anything I can do for you, you’ll find my extension in the directory. It’s off the main menu,” he added, gesturing to the computer screen. “Oh... I guess you have already looked there. How else would you know to call me Dr. Buerer?”

  “It is true that I looked over a list of personnel,” she told him with a smile. “It is the first thing I do in any audit. But there are so many PhDs around here, it would be a safe guess to call anyone doctor.”

  He laughed at that, an undertaker’s mild chuckle that just reinforced that image. “Well, I’ll get going. Just wanted to introduce myself and see if there is anything I can help you with.”

  “There is one thing,” she told him. “What is your impression of your... ah, guest?”

  He frowned. “My impression? Had I not been with this project from almost the inception, I would say that the man there is simply an approximation of a man who lived long ago. However, I know full well just how accurate the Machine can reproduce something from the past, down to the sub-atomic level. All the neurons of the human brain have been created in the Machine exactly as they were at the point in time when the original existed. Exactly! That man has the exact memories and behavior patterns of the original Jesus.

  “You do understand, don’t you, that he is a copy? Not the original brought here through a Time Machine.”

  She replied, “I’ve had enough science background to understand the principle, as hard to believe as it may be. The Jesus I have met has the body and memories of the original, I’m sure. But what I wonder is if there was something in the original that could not be copied.”

  “Ah, you have hit upon something that has sparked much debate! Does the Machine recreate the soul? Or is that something beyond even our advanced science? Was there something else in Jesus that did not come to us?”

  “How do you believe, Doctor?”

  For a brief second his eyes turned hard, but the look was gone as quickly as it had come. He laughed mildly. “That, my dear, is where I differ from most of my colleagues. I believe that this man is only a shell of what Jesus was... and is. I believe that there is no way technology can create the spirit within. That man is an automaton, like an organic computer programmed to respond in totally human ways but lacking the inner soul.”

  “But he seems so very real!” Tamara protested mildly. “I have talked with him. I have seen him show emotions. I have seen him reason. Is there any way to distinguish this Jesus from a totally naturally created human?”

  “I can think of none,” he admitted. “Yet, I believe this man is no more than a copy. He may seem to be Jesus but he is not.” His frown turned into a mocking smile. “How can a machine create what is beyond the physical? No, Miss Graves, this is not Jesus Christ.”

  Tamara could sense the sincerity behind his words. After he had said his polite goodbye and gone, she sat there for a long time, thinking. And finally coming to the conclusion that, as so often happens in religious matters, it boils down to a matter of faith.

  Which left her no closer to the truth than she had been before. With a sigh, she turned to the computer to do some of the work she had been sent there to do.

  Chapter 20: Questions

  The last of the setting sun’s crimson beams were illuminating the mountains to the east, turning into reddish brown and giving testimony to why they were called the Sangre de Cristo, Blood of Christ, Mountains. Tamara stood by her Corvette outside the housing assigned her and watched as the disappearing sun lit up the distant peaks. It reminded her of her childhood home in Colorado where incredibly beautiful mountains, sunsets and sunrises were the norm. She had finished dinner in the Chronodyne cafeteria, an excellent lobster bisque followed by basil salmon terrine, all good enough to convince her that the chef had to be a Frenchman.

  The evening progressed, the mountains turned darker and darker red, and she finally went into the small apartment that was her temporary home. On a small desk in the front room was a computer. It was not connected to the Chronodyne network but did have the Internet, so she brought up Pandora radio and tuned in to her favorite classical station. Beethoven’s Pathetique piano sonata filled the room. Slipping her shoes off, she flopped on the bed and allowed the music to comfort her.

  In the morning, she knew she would have to have another talk with the Chronodyne Project Director, Dr. Stryker. She had spent a good part of the afternoon tracking down some of the unaccounted Machine usage. Knowing about Project J’s hidden usage in bringing Jesus to life, she was puzzled by some remaining occasional additional discrepancies. They were hidden pretty well for most people, but she was a very good auditor and considered the attempts rather crude. She had a list of unauthorized usages and knew who was responsible for them. All that remained was to inform the Project Director and let him take it from there.

  She sighed, and tried to push her work out of her mind. The discrepancies were really minor and would be taken care of, but the fact that she had had lunch with Jesus Christ was still hard to accept. Likewise, his insistence that force should be used, but only when you have a good chance of winning. Or maybe, to put it more accurately, when you have God on your side, assuring you of victory. It did not match up with the pacifist image of him years of Sunday school had instilled in her mind. His “turn the other cheek” had been only telling his disciples not to mess with the Roman soldiers.

  The Internet radio shifted to Johann Sebastian Bach, a cello solo she did not recognize.

  There were still so many unanswered questions filling her thoughts. Was Jesus really a descendent of King David? And, as such, did he have a legitimate claim to the kingship of the Jewish people? What part did that play in his actions? Did he really know that he would be killed, and in such a gruesome manner? Or, more precisely, when did he come to that conclusion?

  She felt like reaching for a pencil and paper to write down all the questions. At the very least, she should talk with Dr. Myers some more. She considered it likely that he had already asked most of those same questions of Jesus. She remembered that she had been offered the video recordings of the interviews. Perhaps it would be a good place to start. But then, she had to remind herself, she could not stay there forever. She had been sent in to do a job that should not have taken more than a week. Sooner or later her bosses, one nasty woman in particular, would be wanting to know what was taking so long. And she was not in a position to tell them the truth.

  For that matter, there was the question of when the project would be announced publicly. It seemed inconceivable to her that such an incredible accomplishment would be kept secret from the world. In a sense, the world had a right to know. At least, that was how she felt. Not only the scientific advance they had made, but also the important person they had brought back. How many millions of people would love to have a chance to talk to Jesus? To hear from his own lips of the events during and at the end of his life.

  While lying there, thinking about that, she became aware of a growing sense of unease. What if the world was told? What would the reaction be? Cheers? Or rioting in the streets? One thing was certain; there would be strong feelings about this.

  With a big sigh, she began undressing for bed. As was her wont, she would read in bed for an hour or so before turning out the light. As she did, she wondered if the people here, from the Project Director on down, really understood the powder keg they were sitting on.

  Chapter 21: More Questions

  “I want to know.”

  Tamara had just asked a question of Dr. Myers and was awaiting his reply.

  “My dear, that
is a complicated question. I’m not sure I know the answer.”

  “It can’t be that hard,” she told him as she paced in front of his desk. “Just tell me: did Jesus arise from the dead?”

  “You do know that we retrieved him just before the point where he died.”

  “Yes.”

  “So there is no way that we can ask him what happened after that point.”

  “True. But your Machine has the ability to see the past. How else could you have identified the time and place to grab him? Or any of the artifacts. Hasn’t someone wondered what happen after that? It wouldn’t be too hard, would it, to simply watch what happened after his death?”

  Myers sighed. “At first, it was decided that we would not use the Machine to determine what happened postmortem. The whole issue of his resurrection has serious religious ramifications, as you can understand. This is a very emotional issue with many people. If we determined that he did appear to his disciples, it would confirm the basic principle of the Christian religion. Likewise, if we do not find any proof of a resurrection, that could well undermine the faith of millions.”

  She frowned and said, “You say ‘at first’...?”

  Myers sighed and shifted in his chair. “So I did. Well, as you can imagine, there are those in the project who were curious. A lot of debate ensured over that issue. Finally, the side that wanted the truth – no matter what it was – won out.”

  “So you did use the Machine to look...”

  “We did.”

  “And?”

  “After his apparent death on the cross, we observed several people taking his body down. They wrapped it in a cloth and carried it away. Jesus died surprisingly quickly. He was on the cross only a few hours. Normally, the victim was simply left to die. However, if the soldiers wanted to speed up the death for some reason, they would break the victim’s legs.”

  “Break the legs?”

  “You have to understand, death by crucifixion usually does not come from dehydration or starvation. Even if left up for a day or more, the victim, already weak from a whipping, loss of blood and shock, usually dies of suffocation. When he can no longer support his weight by his arms and legs, his thorax closes and he gradually suffocates. Breaking the legs prevents the victim from supporting himself and death comes faster.

  “Pilate expressed surprise that Jesus had died in less than six hours. Mark 15:44: ‘And Pilate marveled if he were already dead; and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead’.”

  “And then...?”

  “Let me quote you a little more scripture.

  “John 19:29: Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth.

  “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

  “The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

  “Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him.

  “But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:...”

  “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water,” she finished the quote.

  “Yes,” he nodded. “We saw them break the legs of the other two, then stand there to watch them die. They would be taken down after they died and cast into a pit, not buried. That was the fate of most who were crucified. Only if the family or someone wanted the body and petitioned for it, would the body not be tossed into the pit.

  “But Jesus, apparently already dead, was taken down by the soldiers. Now here is where things get interesting. Keep in mind that when he was crucified, it was the afternoon before the Sabbath. And to Jews, a day begins at sundown. It is also a Jewish requirement that the body of a dead man not be left exposed, even for one night. The Torah clearly states that it must be interred to avoid defiling the land. So, instead of remaining on the cross after sundown, alive or dead, his supposedly dead body was taken away.

  “Since you know your Bible so well, I’m sure you know the part about Joseph of Arimathea asking Pilate for the body. Joseph was a Sanhedrin rabbi, a respected member of the Temple Council. Since it was the high priest and others of the priesthood who feared Jesus and wanted him out of the way, why would a member of that council want to treat his body with respect even to the point of placing it in a cave reserved for his own body eventually? And another rabbi, Nicodemus, also a Sanhedrin member, helps in this act? Why not his disciples? They were nowhere to be seen.

  “So, Jesus is taken to this nearby cave. There, two women, Mariam of Magdala and another Mariam, the mother of one of the disciples, have the task of washing away the blood and filth. Joseph of Arimathea had given them money to buy burial ointment, olive oil mixed with myrrh and aloes. That’s what the Bible says.

  “Now, if you are a conspiracy theorist, there is much here you can pounce upon. The whole series of events seems to have been planned. Why did he die so quickly? Did it have something to do with the vinegar given him on a sponge? John said, ‘When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.’

  “Is it possible that there was something more than vinegar on that sponge? Perhaps a drug to render him unconscious and apparently dead? If he were alive as sundown approached, he would have been left there or his legs would have been broken so that he would die before sundown.”

  He paused to push back his chair and turn to a side table on which sat a coffee maker. “Would you like some?” he asked.

  “No thank you, I prefer tea. But what I would like to know is if what you saw agrees with the Bible.”

  “In the most part, yes. I have seen the recording made through the Machine. It is surprisingly good quality. You can see a lot of details.

  “I saw Jesus nailed to the cross. By the way, you would probably be surprised but the cross was not as depicted in all those paintings. He was not hung on a tall pole well above the heads of the soldiers. His feet were actually only about eighteen inches off the ground. His head was barely above those of the men around him. Same with the other two. If you think about it, that makes it a hell of a lot easier for them to hang him up and eventually take him down.

  “Anyway, that made it easy for someone to give him a drink of vinegar in a sponge. I saw that. I replayed that part several times. The man who gave the sponge to Jesus was a Roman soldier, but he looked to a man on the side before he did it. I got the impression that the soldier was given a clue when to perform that supposed act of insult.

  “Now comes another interesting part. As soon as Jesus apparently passes out, the same Roman comes up and jabs him with a javelin or spear. Some blood comes out. But Jesus does not react. To the centurion in command of the soldiers, that was proof that Jesus was dead.

  “Almost immediately, the man secretly directing this little scene comes forth and talks with the centurion. Equally quickly, Jesus is being taken down.

  “His body is wrapped in a piece of cloth and carried away by two men. Those men were not disciples. From their dress and appearance, I believe they were Jewish and of the priestly class, or at least wealthy.

  “Now, consider this. Sundown is coming soon. This man, whom I believe to be Joseph of Arimathea, gives a silent order and Jesus is drugged, probably by a bribed soldier. A spear pokes his side and gets no reaction. Immediately he is taken down and hauled away. Apparently Joseph had already gotten permission from Pilate to take the body – I think the Gospel got the sequence of events a little out of order there. It is also apparent that they wanted him down quickly before he suffocated to death.

  “The prophecies...” Tamara said.

  “Yes, the
prophecies. ‘A bone of him shall not be broken.’ And ‘They shall look on him whom they pierced’.

  “Well, the recording follows Jesus’ body away from Golgotha, rather hurriedly, I might add. He is taken to a cave. The inside had been prepared as a family tomb, one of many in that area.

  “Here an interesting part occurs. He is put on a ledge. Then, instead of calling upon the women to do the job of cleaning the body, one of the two men pours a liquid into his mouth from a small jar. They try to get him to swallow it. They wait a minute, and then they try again. And a third time.