by Tom Upton
“Or it could mean God,” I said.
“I’m not saying that that is impossible, Travis, just very unlikely. Something might be lost in the translation, here. I hardly think that extremely advanced beings would end up searching earth for what they perceived as being the Almighty.”
“Well, if they didn’t know where He was,” I countered, “why would earth be excluded from their search?”
“Good point,” he conceded.
“I could just ask it,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
When I asked it to define ‘the creator,’ the artifact responded: “That which is responsible for everything.” The information from the artifact was coming through faster now, and with greater clarity. When I relayed everything to it, I did so with greater confidence that I was understanding everything correctly. “It seems,” I went on, “that they began much the same way we started out. Just a bunch of simple people that had faith and believed in one God, the Creator. As they developed, they had difficulties, like us: wars, famine, natural disasters, hatred…. Everything. But eventually they overcame all of it. There were no more wars. There was no more hatred. All those things they believed their God wished them to overcome, they overcame. It finally came to a point where there was no longer any goals to achieve. In the meanwhile, they awaited the promised return of their creator. They waited what amounts to thousands of our years, and yet their creator never returned. Finally, they decided to go looking for him, to show him what that had accomplished and to see if there was anything else He wished them to do. They have explored thousands of star systems in the search, but have yet to find him.”
“All right, now,” Mr. Laughton said, “this is getting a little too weighty.” Here he considered something, and as he did so, he assumed an air I judged to be somewhat shifty. “Let’s ask it something more-- practical, shall we? Ask it how to set its temporal coordinates.”
“Its temporal coordinates?” I asked. “What are those, and how do we know it has them?”
“Just never mind,” he nearly snapped. “Just ask it.”
I got a strange feeling, then, a sudden eerie sense of distrust. He seemed to change from someone who was mild-mannered and curious to someone harboring ulterior motives. Almost instinctively my mind assumed a defensive set, and when it did, the viewing screen vanished and the console sunk back into the floor.
Mr. Laughton looked stunned at the abruptness with which his living room looked again just like any other living room. He stood there, gapping at me, obviously at a loss for words.
“Travis--” he managed at last.
But I looked at him and saw him for what he was, which was not much more than a stranger, an odd common-looking man of whom I had been intensely suspicious just a short while ago.
“I didn’t mean to be so curt,” he said. “It’s just something that is pretty important to me.” He stepped over to the sofa, and let his weight drop wearily onto it. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Without his glasses, his face appeared that much more ordinary. “It’s something of a sore spot, actually,” he said, replacing his glasses. “I really don’t like to think about it, let alone talking about it.”
“So,” I said. “What’s the deal?”
III. MOM
1
“A few years ago, while we were getting ready to make another move, I was-- tinkering with the control console. This was when we were getting ready to move to Batavia, Illinois. I had all the coordinates set for us to jump into a house I had purchased there. I did--something, and discovered there was another set of coordinates that could be set. I’m still not sure exactly how I did it, but I figured out a way to set temporal coordinates. You see, when we lived in Batavia, we lived there in the future-- as crazy as that may sound. Apparently, the artifact has the capability to travel through time as well as space. I remember I was enormously pleased with myself at the time. Also, I was more convinced than ever that I was right about not letting the artifact fall into the wrong hands. Can you image some military idiots going back into time to try to change history for whatever reason? You just knew that was a possibility. Or somebody jumps into the future, in order to bring future technology back to an earlier time. There was just no end to the mischief somebody could conceive, nor to the damage they could cause-- whether intentionally or by accident. I think, in the end, I was living proof of the danger. I have to admit my mistake, you see? I thought at first how interesting it would be to fill in different temporal coordinates. I never considered the possible consequences. All I could think of was stupid things-- like shooting forward a few years to see which stocks went up, or wondering how far in the future I would have to go before I could turn on the television there and see the Chicago Cubs win a World Series. You know, dumb things. Anyway, I finally decided to set the coordinates for 2014. How much could the world change in ten years, right? And it would be interesting. You know, who would be president. I could check the internet for the latest scientific discoveries. Also, I could gather all the winning lottery numbers up to that date, and the next jump we made return to an earlier time so that I could win the pick three twice a day every single day until gas station attendants looked at me with awe….”
He paused here a moment, and when he continued, his tone was noticeably glum. “It was a terribly foolish thing to do, really. I should have known better. I should have realized there could be unforeseen complications,” he said, and wagged his head sadly.
“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”
“It’s how we ended up losing Eliza’s mother,” he said, and then noticing the stunned look I must have had on my face, added, “Oh, no, she’s not dead…. Well, I don’t know what you’d actually call her-- she’s not here and living, but she’s not dead. I guess you’d call her displaced-- temporally displaced. Basically we-- I ended up leaving her there, at that future time. When we returned to this time period, I realized I couldn’t reset the temporal coordinates so that we could go back and retrieve her. It’s all my fault, really-- my arrogance in believing I could actually control such a thing. And because of my stupidity, Eliza has been without her mother for what?-- four years now. Don’t think she doesn’t know where to lay the blame for it all, either. There are still sometimes when I catch her looking at me-- looking at me in that horrible accusing way….
“Oh, I see you’re a little lost, aren’t you? Well, let me start from the beginning-- fill you in on how it happened.
“We made the jump to the exact time and place. At first it appeared that everything would be all right. Batavia is basically a nice little place to live, surrounded by farmland. The place I arranged to move was a big old farmhouse that came with seven acres of mostly wooded property. Very nice. Peaceful. Remote. It seemed like the ideal place to hide the artifact, really, while my family could enjoy a healthy, simple existence.
“Because it was a rural community, it was not affected so much by the passage of time-- not marred by progress-- and so it didn’t appear that the decade difference would be of any consequence. We settled nicely into the community-- this was when we actually got out and interacted more with people. We went to the grocery store. Eliza enrolled in school, though I had to forge a new birth certificate-- her real birth certificate showed that she was twenty-two, not twelve, you see. Everything was perfect, actually. You know, I really thought for a while that this was it-- this would be the last place we’d ever had to move. Nobody would ever dream of looking for me and the strange things I’d brought back from Peru. The passage of ten extra years-- well, gossip only lasts so long, and curiosity has only so much endurance. Those people who had been convinced that I’d returned from Peru with some astounding discoveries I was hell-bent on hiding for some reason-- those people probably stopped thinking about me long ago-- the gossip died-- the reports to interested government agencies dwindled. The ones on file were forgotten, and if they were ever looked up, they would probably be written off as rumor. It was the perfect place and time
to hide forever, and pursue a reasonably normal life.
“And it was-- for a while.
“What happened then was completely unforeseen. I guess it really all began after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. You remember that, right? Of course you do, and who doesn’t? Well, afterward, there was a scramble to pursue increased security throughout the entire country-- especially at airports, though. There was the tightening of all conventional security methods. Everything was done to heighten security as much and as quickly as possible. In the meantime, new technologies were being developed to insure even greater security in the future. Sensor systems designed to detect explosives were developed and placed in airports. That sort of thing-- really high tech.
“Then, in March of 2008-- a few years from now-- a terrorist cell managed to get a hold of a tactical nuclear weapon-- most likely an old Soviet satchel bomb. There had already been rumors for years about a few of them floating around-- not accounted for-- after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The terrorists were able to smuggle the bomb into Mexico, and they set it off in Mexico City, causing unimaginable loss of life-- tens of thousands of people killed outright, and hundreds of thousands dying in the following weeks from radiation poisoning. Millions of people had to be relocated. Mexican economy in ruins. We suddenly had a major refugee problem, and learned that terrorists didn’t have to strike directly at this country in order to cause us a considerable amount of problems, economic and otherwise. Suddenly the security we had been enjoying again, because of technologies that would prevent such a bomb from being smuggled into this country-- well, it all seemed aside from the point. As if encouraged by the turmoil resulting in this country from an attack on one of its neighbors, other terrorists used a similar strategy. Two months after the Mexico City attack, terrorists detonated a “dirty bomb” outside of Palermo, Sicily. The loss of life from radiation poisoning was not great, but the city had to be evacuated and for the most part will not be habitable for years. Three weeks later, another “dirty bomb”: this time in South Africa, targeting one of the biggest gold mines in the world and shutting it down for years to come….
“In this country, it became clear to everybody that we could indeed be the most well-protected land on earth, and yet can be harmed by terrorists’ acts elsewhere in the world-- in countries that can’t afford to spend on security what we’re able to spend…. The world really is a small place, and getting smaller with each passing year. Countries are becoming bound tighter economically. Something bad happens in Japan, and our stock markets drop.
“The president at that time-- I won’t mention a name, here; you probably wouldn’t believe me anyway-- the president decided, and rightfully so, what the world needed was a planet-wide system to detect and track nuclear material. What was created they called the Sentinel Project. It was a joint project-- CIA, NASA, the air force, FEMA, the department of homeland security-- all involved in the development of a global satellite system that would continually search the planet for unknown and suspicious fissionable material. Most of the work on the technology was carried out at Cal Tech, University of Chicago, and MIT. What they came up with was a sensor system that could identify energy sources by their specific energy signatures. The software for the system must be fantastic; it has to separate all the energy sources the system detects, identifying those that are nuclear. Those results are then cross-referenced against all the known nuclear material in the world. Anything left over is tracked and investigated. Nobody had any secrets, then-- friendly countries, unfriendly countries, terrorists. Hah, they were even able to locate large and small uranium deposits underground, waiting to be mined. And this system was so efficient, if they wanted to, they could zero in on a specific location-- say a house-- and tell you just how many double AA batteries were inside that house. Imagine that. Anyway, it took five years to develop the system, which was finished in 2013, when it was deployed around the planet. It became operational in early 2015, about two months after we jumped to Batavia. And this is the thing that could never have been anticipated. One of the first things the system must have detected was the energy signature of the artifact, which couldn’t have looked like anything they were seeing anywhere else in the world. Now, I don’t know if you realize this, but Fermi Labs is located in Batavia-- home of what for many years was the largest super-collider in the world, which meant that it was on a list of potential targets of terrorist attack-- not really high on the list, but on the list. Well, the men in black showed up at the house one day. Nobody was home; Eliza and I were out-- I think I took her to a park or something-- and my wife was working as a receptionist at a doctor’s office. The house was under her maiden name. They went right to the office and detained her. It wasn’t so much as an arrest as it was a kidnapping. When it came to terrorist or possible terrorist activity, the laws were still in place that limited a person’s rights; they could hold you for an unlimited time without charging you for anything or without letting you talk to a lawyer even.
“Well, anyway, when I found out what was happening, I kept away from the house until that night. We snuck back in, then-- they didn’t seem to be watching the place, but they sure tore up everything inside looking for something they could never find. I programmed another jump. I was planning to jump back to an earlier time, before the trouble started, grabbing my wife and resettling in the time period we belonged. After we jumped out of danger, I realized I couldn’t reprogram the temporal coordinates again to jump back into the future. I could never figure out why. All I know was that my wife was stranded, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.”
Telling the story seemed to have drained him. He sat there limply at the opposite end of the sofa. He even looked as if he’d lost about twenty pounds, and crow’s feet showed beneath his eyes. He gave me a wry look now, and said, “Foolish old man, right? I think the same thing every time I see myself in the mirror.”
***********
For the next two weeks, I went to the Laughton’s house each afternoon. I’d sit on the sofa in the living room, and answer a set of questions Eliza’s father had prepared for the day, while he paced back and forth, occasionally stopping to jot down some notes on the yellow legal pad he carried with him. Slowly, day by day, the accumulated knowledge gathered would at long last unlock all the hidden secrets of the artifact, whose technical nature was so advanced as to be baffling.
During the next weeks, I learned quite a bit about Mr. Laughton. He was as simple in nature as he was common in appearance. He desperately longed to see his wife again; he was a very gentle man with the heart of a romantic. It wasn’t long before he insisted that I call him Doc, the way Eliza always did, and I felt that he was developing a genuine fondness for me-- he even once confided that he’d always wished for a son, but then made me promise never to tell Eliza, for he wasn’t sure how she would take it. Another important thing I learned about him as he asked his endless series of questions, and as he made his occasional cryptic notes, was that he had absolutely no clue what he was doing-- he was like a man trying to grip something but unable to do so because he had no hands. As far as archeology, he was fine, and could expound for hours on end the details of historically significant discoveries. But when it came to issues of high tech, it became clear that the man was utterly lost, not asking the right questions-- sometimes, even asking questions that weren’t remotely relevant.
We would take breaks, during which Eliza would bring me lunch or dinner. Unfortunately, she had to be barred from being present when he father questioned me, because, to be entirely truthful, she was very distracting and getting more so as time went by. It really wasn’t her fault, though; I simply couldn’t concentrate enough to answer Doc’s questions, if she were in the same room. My eye would always drift in her direction, and focus on her or on some part of her-- her hands or her neck or the backs or her knees, whatever-- and soon my mind would wander off into blissful areas where no thoughts were possible. Naturally she didn’t take this exclusion very w
ell, becoming morose or sarcastic each and every time she had to leave Doc and me alone. I tried to convince her that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that I found her so distracting, but she remained skeptical, moody, even outright belligerent at times.
“Well, what was so darned distracting about me today?” she’d demanded, very defensive.
“Actually, your knees,” I’d say.
“My knees? What about my knees?”
“I don’t know-- they’re sort of-- cute.”
Here she’d looked down at her knees, which, in actual fact, were on the bony side and covered with old scars from when she’d fallen and hurt herself as a child.
“Cute? They’re hideous,” she’d say, and walk away seething, believing I was making fun of her.
Each passing day her attitude worsened, and even during those times-- after I’d finish a session with Doc-- when she and I would sit there munching on pizza and watching television, she remained so mad she refused to speak to me. Once, when I made some small attempt to elicit a truce, she narrowed her eyes and actually hissed at me, “I hate you. I utterly hate you,” after which she rose and fled from the living room to go upstairs and lock herself in her bedroom.
Then Doc, having caught her outbreak, came into the living room and sat with me on the sofa. When I looked at him, he just shrugged.
“I know she doesn’t mean it,” he said, “but beyond that I can’t say anything. When it comes to women, I’m fairly lost-- I’m not ashamed to admit. A man has to realize his limitations when it comes to comprehending females. If he doesn’t--well, that can lead into all kinds of trouble.”
From there we slipped into an uncomfortable talk during which he asked all kinds of questions about my family. It was strictly small talk, I understood that, but that didn’t make talking any easier. He showed only mild interest when I explained that my father was a traveling sales man. He wondered at the fact that I didn’t even know what my father sold-- which was true enough, as I’d never been interested enough to ask. He appeared more interested when I began to tell him about my brother and how he’d won an O. Henry award and all. Finally he started to ask about me, was I planning on going to college, what I was interested in…. To my embarrassment, I couldn’t answer very many of his questions. Truthfully, I had no plans-- never really considered any, beyond trying out for a couple teams after school began in the fall. After that, who knew?
