The Tomorrow Code

by Brian Falkner

  Rebecca’s program had already decoded a second message from the future and was busy working on the third. The second message was just as cryptic as the first.

  PROFVICGRNCHMRAPRJCTSTOPIT.

  BUYSUBEONTLS.DNTGOMST.DNTTLNE1.

  Rebecca was clicking her fingers in front of Tane’s face to get his attention.

  “Concentrate,” Rebecca said. “This is important.”

  Tane didn’t think it was all that important, but it was taking Rebecca’s mind off the last twenty minutes, so he tried to concentrate, for her sake.

  It was hard. His hands were shaking and he wanted to vomit. If the numbers were right, then Rebecca would be able to pay all their bills, and they wouldn’t have to move to Masterton. Everything would be all right.

  “It’s called the grandfather paradox, and it goes like this. What if you went back in time and killed your own grandfather?”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why would I go back in time and kill Grandad? He’s nice. I’ve got nothing against Grandad.”

  “Tane! Focus! That doesn’t matter. We’re just saying if. Okay. If you went back in time and killed your grandfather when he was just a boy, then you would have never been born. Therefore, you could not have gone back in time to kill your grandfather. And so you would have been born, and so you could go back and kill him, but then you wouldn’t have been born…and around and around it goes.”

  “Grandad takes me fishing,” Tane said, but quickly added, when he saw that he was about to get thumped, “But I get it, I get it!”

  “Some people say that time is like a Möbius strip. An endless loop with no start, no end, and a single surface, called the present.”

  Tane just shook his head. This science stuff was elementary to Rebecca, but it was way beyond him. His watch said nineteen minutes to go. What if the numbers were wrong! What if they weren’t Lotto numbers at all?

  “What’s a Möbius strip?” he asked.

  “Oh, come on! Do you ever stay awake in math?” Rebecca cried, and jumped up. She disappeared into Tane’s room for a second and reemerged with paper, scissors, tape, and a pen. Tane watched intently as she cut a long strip from the paper and held the ends together in a loop.

  “A Möbius strip is a piece of paper with only one side and one edge.”

  Tane tried to imagine that. “No way. If a piece of paper has a top, then it has to have a bottom. How can a piece of paper have only one side?”

  “Watch.”

  Rebecca took one end of the strip of paper and twisted it over, just once. She taped it to the other end. “There you go. A piece of paper with only one side.”

  Tane took it and examined it. “Nope. Look, a top and a bottom. Or I suppose you’d say an inside and an outside.” He knew he wasn’t going to win this argument, but it was always fun to try.

  Rebecca offered him the pen. “Draw a line longways, around the strip. Don’t lift your pen off the surface. Stay on one side of the paper only.”

  Tane shook his head but took the pen and started drawing.

  What if there was no Lotto win? No great scientific discovery? And Rebecca would still go to Masterton.

  After a few seconds of drawing, he found himself right back where he started, joining up with the start of his line.

  “So?”

  “So you drew on only one side of the paper, right?”

  “Yeah?” He looked at the Möbius strip. He had drawn around both the inside and the outside of the loop.

  “See, it has only one side.”

  Tane frowned and forgot about his watch for the first time that day.

  “But what has this got to do with us?”

  “It’s like we’re on that loop. And when someone in the future sends a message to the past—”

  “When we send a message to ourselves…”

  “Whoever. But it’s like they have made a hole in the paper and passed the message through to where we are in the past. But instead of paper, it’s quantum foam, and the message is the gamma-ray burst.”

  “And what has my grandfather got to do with all this?”

  “Well, they sent the Lotto numbers, right? But when we win—”

  “If.”

  “Okay. Just suppose for a moment that it is us sending the messages.”

  “It is!” Tane insisted. “Think about it. Who else would know that we had thought of analyzing the BATSE data just at that precise time. Only us!”

  “All right, us. If we win the Lotto but then forget to send the numbers to ourselves, then we won’t win the Lotto, and around and around it goes!”

  “Wow.” Tane could think of nothing else to say, really.

  Rebecca held up a notebook. “So I’ve got this notebook, and I have recorded the exact dates and times of the gamma-ray messages. Along with what the messages said, of course. Sometime in the future we have to send the messages, and any others that arrive, exactly as we received them. Otherwise, kaboom, the grandfather paradox.”

  “Leave my grandad out of this,” Tane muttered. “And where are we even going to get the gamma-ray time-messaging-machine thingy from anyway?”

  “That part I’m not sure of. In the meantime, let’s see that new message again.”

  Rebecca opened the notebook and they pored over it together. Rebecca lightly drew some lines in pencil to separate what she thought were the words.

  PROF VIC GRN CHMRA PRJCT STOP IT. BUY SUB EON TLS. DNT GO MST. DNT TL NE1

  She said, “I think it’s like text-messaging. That kind of truncated English.”

  Tane picked up the rest of the paper that Rebecca had made the Möbius strip from. “So what have we got?”

  “I think the first part is easy. PROF VIC GRN has to be Professor Vic Green. I don’t know who he is, but we can Google him or check with the universities later.”

  “What about CHMRA PRJCT?”

  “Something project. Chim, cham, chem, chom, chum. Where’s your dictionary?”

  It was five to eight by the time they found the word.

  “Chimera! That’s the only word that fits.” Rebecca pronounced it slowly. “Ky–mere–rah.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Rebecca looked, and frowned. “In Greek mythology, it’s a monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.”

  Tane blanched, remembering the SOS. “I don’t like the sound of that!”

  “Wait, in biology, it means an organism formed by grafting tissues or splicing genes from two or more different organisms.”

  “Chimera Project. Stop it. We are supposed to stop the Chimera Project. That’s what this whole thing is about.” Tane frowned. “I’m starting to wish they’d sent the message to someone else.”

  “We sent the message, according to you. Who else were we going to send it to?”

  Tane’s watch said seven fifty-seven. “Better turn the TV on,” he said, and did so.

  Rebecca was still examining the message. “We have to buy a ‘SUB EON TLS,’ whatever that is, and don’t go to the ‘MST.’ Mast, mest, mist, most, must. Don’t go in the…”

  “Masterton,” said Tane brightly. “Don’t go to Masterton!”

  “Okay,” Rebecca said, “and the last bit is easy. ‘Don’t tell anyone.’”

  The live, televised Lotto draw came on the TV, and Tane turned the sound up. He could hardly breathe. If the numbers were the same…What if they weren’t? Then again, from the cryptic clues in the last message, maybe they’d be better off if they weren’t!

  Rebecca and Tane sat on the couch to watch the short program, the original crumpled piece of paper on the coffee table in front of them. The numbers stared back at them: 8, 11, 22, 32, 39, 40, 3.

  “What time is your mum coming home tonight?” Rebecca asked idly during the theme tune and preamble.

  “Not till after eleven. Why?”

  His dad was away in the bush, and his mum was out at some community council meeting.

  �
�No reason,” Rebecca said quietly.

  Tane dragged his attention away from the screen and looked at her. He asked thoughtfully, “How’s your mum? Will she be okay on her own tonight?”

  “She’s fine. Stop worrying.”

  Tane stopped worrying, but only because the Lotto hostess, elegant and sophisticated in a long blue gown, came on and started talking. Her blond hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and her smile was wide and toothy.

  After an interminable introduction, the overly effusive hostess started the barrel rolling, and the Lotto balls began to tumble.

  He barely felt Rebecca’s hand slip into his. She was scarcely breathing.

  The first number out was thirty-two.

  “We’ve got that! We’ve got that!” Tane yelled.

  Rebecca still wasn’t breathing.

  The second number was eleven.

  “We’ve got that too! It is this week’s draw! It is this week’s draw!”

  The next number rolled down the slope from the barrel and Tane froze.

  “Thirty-six? Thirty-six?” He screamed, “It can’t be thirty-six!”

  The ball stopped rolling. The Lotto hostess announced, “Thirty-nine.”

  Rebecca collapsed against Tane.

  He said, “Thirty-nine. It looked funny when it was rolling. It was a thirty-nine.”

  Rebecca didn’t reply. She hadn’t breathed since the start of the show. She finally took a breath after the next number, though. Eight. By that stage it was just a formality.

  Forty. Twenty-two.

  He didn’t even bother watching the bonus numbers and found to his great surprise that he was hugging Rebecca, and she was hugging him.

  The Powerball Jackpot had been sitting at $6,325,450 by the time the Lotto booths had closed at seven o’clock that evening.

  It was almost anticlimactic seeing the three ball come wobbling up the little tube.

  “We proved it. Messages through time. It’s the scientific discovery of the century!” Rebecca breathed out slowly, and added almost as an afterthought, “And we’re rich!”

  “No.” Tane shook his head. “Not yet. At the moment, we’ve got nothing. Fatboy is the rich one. Let’s see if he does the right thing.”

  Rebecca nodded. “He will. But now that we know it really works, we’ve got the important stuff to discuss.”

  Tane knew what she meant. That was one thing his mind kept coming back to again and again. This wasn’t a get-rich-quick scheme.

  It was a cry for help.

  EVENSONG

  Sunday was a good day. A day of celebration. Rebecca stayed over in the guest room, and Tane’s mum made French toast for breakfast.

  They didn’t mention the Lotto win to her, even though to keep it inside when it kept trying to burst out was like trying to hold in an enormous belch after drinking a whole can of Coca-Cola. Tane wasn’t quite sure why they kept it a secret. “Don’t tell anyone,” the message had said. But did that include his own mum?

  Tane had tossed and turned during the night, dreaming of Greek monsters with teeth of fire, but even so, he was up at six, before the sun, and Rebecca was already awake when he got up. It felt a bit like the day after Christmas when all the excitement is over and done with, but the real fun of playing with all your presents is about to begin.

  They just talked until his mum got up and made the French toast. They talked about the money mainly. What to do with it. What to spend it on.

  There were some dark thoughts lurking, but those didn’t get a mention in the early light of Sunday.

  By nine o’clock, they had solved most of the second message. Professor Vic Green turned out to be a woman, Professor Victoria Green, a highly respected geneticist. According to the Auckland University Web site, she was currently heading a private research laboratory on Motukiekie Island in the Bay of Islands.

  But SUB EON TLS turned out to be the biggest surprise: SUBEO NTLS.

  “It’s a submarine!” Tane’s eyes were wide. “We’re supposed to buy a submarine! Cool!”

  “I wonder why?” Rebecca said curiously.

  Subeo was a British company. They had achieved international fame a few years earlier when they had produced what they called the world’s first underwater sports car: the Subeo Gemini, a two-man submarine, designed mainly for recreational purposes.

  The Subeo Aquarius had followed, a three-man version that also proved quite popular for commercial operators. But the latest model, not yet released, according to their Web site, was the Subeo Nautilus. If the Gemini was a sports car and the Aquarius a sedan, then the Nautilus was an underwater motor home. It was large enough for six people, an entire family, and could stay underwater for months on end. It was the first of the Subeo products to incorporate a diesel engine as a generator, to charge the banks of sealed-cell batteries that were the power source for the submarine.

  Tane ran through three sheets of specifications that he downloaded as a PDF file before he came to the price.

  “Holy cow!” he said.

  “Where? Let me see.” Rebecca grabbed the piece of paper off him.

  “One and a half million pounds! What’s that in New Zealand dollars?” She found a currency converter on the Internet. “That’s over four million dollars!”

  “We’ll only just have enough, after Fatboy takes his share,” Tane said grimly, the thoughts of riches vanishing before his eyes. “Are you sure we have to buy this thing?”

  Rebecca nodded. “I wish I wasn’t. There is a reason they, we, went to so much trouble to send this message back through time. I don’t know what it is, but I know that we have to buy a Subeo Nautilus, and if they’re in England, then we’d better get started.”

  Tane looked carefully at her. If they spent all their money on a submarine, then how would they afford to buy a new house for Rebecca? He opened his mouth to say so, but decided against it. Instead he just sighed and composed a quick inquiry e-mail to Subeo. He hesitated before clicking the SEND button but eventually sent the message on its way through cyberspace.

  “Where the heck is Fatboy?” he wondered aloud.

  That evening, after Rebecca had gone home and there was still no sign of his brother, Tane went for a walk out amongst the treetops. His dad had built the ropewalk himself, off the end of the deck, but it was sure and safe, if a little wobbly in places. There was a heavy rope for a base, like that of an anchor rope from a sailing ship. On each side, at about shoulder height and just in arm’s reach, two more slender ropes gave you something to hold on to.

  Tane didn’t bother to open the safety gate; he just swung his legs over it and walked the first few steps without even holding on to the handrails, balancing like a tightrope walker.

  He came out here often. Some days because he wanted to, and other days the evensong of the native birds seemed to call to him.

  The breeze had come up with the closing of the day, but the sun had yet to disappear behind the mountainside, so it was pleasantly warm. The leaves on the trees that surrounded him ruffled softly, but the branches and the rope were still. All around him, birds sang joyfully in an enveloping chorus.

  His dad came out here a lot also. He said it beat the hell out of watching television in the evening, and Tane supposed he was right.

  The last time he had seen his dad was a couple of weeks ago, just before he had gone bush on another painting project. Fatboy had come around that day to show off his moko, which he had somehow managed to persuade their mum to keep a secret.

  Fatboy had walked in and taken off his helmet, and after an initial look of surprise, their father’s face had cracked slowly into a smile, and his eyes had sparkled with pride. His dad had embraced Fatboy and pressed their foreheads and noses together in a hongi, the traditional Maori greeting. Then he had hugged his eldest son, and Fatboy, the cool, leather-clad, rock-star-in-the-making that he was, had hugged him back without embarrassment or backslapping.

  Tane thought back on that now and shook his head. He and his brothe
r couldn’t be more different. He was getting messages from the future, but Fatboy was still stuck in the past.

  Where the heck was Fatboy anyway? He had not called, and when they tried his mobile phone, it went straight to voice mail. Had he even watched the Lotto draw? Did he know? Maybe he did, and that was why he hadn’t called.

  A tui landed on the rail just in front of Tane’s left hand. The distinctive white feather under the bird’s chin looked like a miniature clerical collar. The parson bird, the early European settlers had called it, because it looked like a churchman. Tane didn’t move. The tui looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then fluffed up its feathers and began to sing. The call of the tui was legendary, and they seemed to sing a different song every time you heard them. This bird, this day, had a slow, sad, rhythmical pattern that sounded like a lullaby.

  After a while, the bird stopped and looked back at Tane, turning its head from side to side in small darting movements.

  Tane raised a hand slowly toward the tui, inviting it to perch on his finger. The tui took a step backward on the rope. I’m not scared, it seemed to be saying, but I’m not stupid. Then it was gone in a whirling dash around and through the branches of a nearby macrocarpa.

  Tane stayed put for a while, looking out across the valley toward the concrete spires of the city.

  It would be a shame when this was all gone. He knew it was coming. The subdevelopers with their tractors and bulldozers would be here one day. Already, across the ridge in the next valley, he could see the brown scar where a construction crew had felled the trees and cleared the bush, preparing the foundations for a new lodge and conference center.

  One day, this ropewalk would be something he would tell his grandkids about, and they’d laugh, he thought, unsure whether to believe him.