by Brandt Legg
Very few knew of High-peak’s existence. Those that did had not been told its location. Most of High-peak’s staff of scientists, engineers, and assistants lived there full-time. Those that didn’t were escorted in and out by a practiced team of operatives whose only job was to maintain the security of the ultra-secret facility.
It had taken him more than a year to outfit and get it operational, and that was only because he had spent six years prior to that accumulating the materials he would need and setting up the data paths. Now it was all in jeopardy, as he had to risk real exposure with guardians in the area.
I should’ve stayed last time . . . But he knew he couldn’t have. I need every moment with Shanoah.
The keypad was a type of holographic projection emanating from pliable diodes Trynn had planted in the bark, which were only visible at precisely correct angles above the range of the Airsliders and hidden from sky view by a thick canopy of leaves. Once he pressed the proper sequence, the rod would surface, serving the dual purpose of allowing a bridge from the mainland to his Eysen lab, and providing a conduit for the required energy and oxygen streams. It would also create his greatest exposure. He had never taken such a risk before, and although the Cosegan’s measurement of time was different, he felt the ticking clock all the way from the 21st century, an era where Ripley Gaines was a designee of an Eysen, and the fate of all existence rested in his mortal hands.
High up in that tree, waiting to be certain there were no guardians close, Trynn reflected on the irony that so many Cosegan descendants had viewed Trynn and the Imazes as Gods. He recalled a conversation he’d had with Shanoah on the subject. They had both laughed at the thought of being considered gods.
“We are barely holding these things together,” Shanoah had said. “If we were gods, we would’ve been able to take care of this in the morning instead of the immeasurable amount of time that has been put into these attempts to save our species.”
“Yet in some ways we act like gods, and even possess god-like powers, to them,” Trynn countered. “For the heavenly deities created by the earthly cultures which will follow ours, we may well be the inspiration.”
“They see the Imazes as gods because of our visits and our knowledge. The monuments and art they have constructed to honor us confuses those in the archaeologist’s time.”
“Imagine what it’s like for some of those primitive cultures to see one of your ships coming from the sky. And you arrive looking like them, yet possessing knowledge beyond their imaginings.”
“I think that’s why they depict us with such large heads,” she said, making a face.
Trynn had laughed at her words when she’d originally said them, and smiled again now, thinking of her face.
“But it is you Trynn, with your Eysens, that are truly god-like. I could make a case when you have the ability to view all creation inside one of your magic balls, and are able to give a nudge and push here and there. You are playing god in a similar way to the gods that those future religions will portray.”
He couldn’t argue with her, seeing how he could manipulate events to change minds, inspire, even answer prayers. “But remember, I cannot see all of existence at once. To me, that would truly be the ability of a god.”
She nodded. “And yet, when you think about it, we are the gods of our descendants. If they knew that, would they feel more alone in the universe? Or would they feel stronger, more powerful?”
The implications of her words had startled him for some reason. Standing on that strong branch, counting seconds, still eleven million years away, he wondered if she had been right. And if the Arc had been right in that playing god, expecting change, carrying all of it, was somehow wrong.
As he waited and hoped he could get to High-peak, he wondered who he was praying to himself. To an unknown god somewhere in the universe he did not believe existed?
Then he realized he was praying to the future, to the descendants, for they had his fate in their hands. Their choices, their actions, would determine if he lived or died.
What is more godlike than that?
Fifty
Trynn stood in the underwater lab, inside the room of a million futures, among more than twenty-thousand holographic projections. He wandered through Renaissance era Italy, the Biblical middle east, Middle ages France and England, and finally across the United States, five hundred years later. He carefully watched the movements and actions of Leonardo da Vinci, Nostradamus, and Rip and Gale, trying to connect all the nuances to create the precise reality he needed.
“How close are we to throwing the Switch?”
The voice of his assistant, Cardd, startled him from his future wanderings. The Infinity Switch was the final step. Once Trynn found the precise moment when everything synched into exact alignment across every time and event over the eleven million years, he would hit the Infinity Switch and lock that specific reality into place across eternity—thereby halting the Terminus Doom.
Trynn shook his head. “Not remotely close.”
“It’s a race,” another scientist said, joining the conversation as all the realities sifted around them. Each were studying a different part, except for Trynn. Already the most brilliant among them, and now amped up on Revon, he could see endlessly further than they, the interconnections, the alternatives, all of it—or at least enough to infer the rest.
“It doesn’t look like we’ll win,” another said.
“Not today,” the second one agreed. “The race to the Switch has been going on for a long time, and each day we hope it will be the day that we win . . . Yes, it is a race, but we are out of time. The window is closing.”
They all remained silent in their deliberations, expecting Trynn to reply. When he did not, another spoke.
“There have been days when our efforts had gotten close to where we thought the Switch could be hit. Remember when we were moments away?”
Cardd nodded. “But then we watched as it all slipped away . . . one man took a wrong turn, one woman uttered unexpected words, and everything was thrown off again.”
The entire ceiling in the cavernous room was covered with millions of ripples, overlapping, affecting, and transforming one another, as pebbles in a pond. They represented the constant changing of the future. They had spent years learning to study the patterns, reading impressions; they were their own language. It all came naturally to the Cosegans, whose culture revolved around circles, mathematics, and the sciences.
Trynn ignored their comments, having already come to the same conclusion that today would not be the day. He glanced at the end of the hall, beyond a glass wall, where an actual physical switch, the Infinity Switch, stood surrounded by glowing orbs within a sphere of glass electrodes and electric lightning bolts, wavering a thousand shades of purple and blue. How desperately he wanted to ignite that fire . . .
But not today.
“What is that?” one of the scientists asked.
Curiosity turned Trynn’s head. Then he saw the projections of his insertion team.
“It’s the insertion for Leonardo da Vinci,” the other answered.
With all the images within the lab floating in the air, bending with time, it was a difficult place to maintain one’s sanity. He stopped and watched to see how it would change the ceiling ripples, and everything else.
He recalled the first insertion. It had not been Nostradamus, as most Cosegans and The Circle thought, it had been the one for Rip—the last Eysen, the last chance, but he’d had to place it first. The fail-safe, the one he hoped never to use, and now he wasn’t just in a race to get to the Switch, he was racing Rip as well. He had to fix everything before Rip found the next Eysen.
It had all started when the insertion team trudged through the thick woods, cutting back vegetation. There had been eighteen men and women on the team, mostly Etherens because they were used to the wildlands. He still used them for insertions.
Cosegans, who were highly trained scientists, utilizing their own Eysens an
d mind crystals, could find the exact spots, but Rip’s insertion had been more difficult. It was the only one being inserted into the “modern” era, a time in which a device such as an Eysen could actually be created. Certainly it would not have had the depth of infinite knowledge that real Eysens carried, but the archaeologist had to know it came from millions of years before, that it was an authentic, out-of-place artifact, that it was worth protecting and giving one’s life for. All those ingredients could only occur if there was no dispute to its age. The others, found hundreds or even thousands of years earlier, would’ve been so far advanced that the people would not question if they were truly god-like.
Fifty-One
As one of Booker’s private jets whisked Rip, Gale, and Cira back to the United States, Rip called Huang, a Chinese genius who Booker had hired away from the largest Chinese Internet company decades earlier. He knew more about technology on nano and quantum levels than almost anyone alive. Huang had also been a major influence on Booker’s development of Universe Quantum Physics, or UQP.
From the earliest days, after Gale and Rip had faked their own deaths, Huang had been their connection to the outside scientific community, and had personally recruited many of the original crew of scientists from all over the world. Along the way, he’d become Rip and Gale’s closest friend.
“Any word?” Rip asked.
“Yes,” Huang replied, “they got it.”
Rip and Gale both stood at the same time, as if by standing they might be able to see whatever it was the Blaxers had pulled from the Roman wall.
“I’ll send photos,” Huang said.
“Is it—”
“Yes, it matched the dimensions and markings exactly. But, of course, it is dark, and the Blaxers have not attempted to initiate the sequence.”
“A third Eysen at last,” Rip said, still marveling at how Booker had obtained those pages that had lead them there. “Who was the first to receive it?”
“Based upon the location, it could have been Leonardo, but only if Nostradamus wound up with Leonardo’s, because it was the papers of Nostradamus that led us there.”
Rip hoped that Leonardo and Nostradamus each had their own, because it would make his job of locating all nine easier. “We’ll figure it out once we connect it to the other two,” Rip said, anxious to get back to his Eysen.
“I hope so,” Huang said. “You know, Nostradamus claimed to receive his vision by looking into a dark bowl of water.”
“Sounds like a way to explain an Eysen to people of his era.”
“His quatrains were written in multiple languages because the Church was watching his every move.”
“He published nearly a thousand prophecies,” Gale said, as Cira slept next to her.
“Many more than that,” Huang corrected. “Booker has obtained more than fifteen hundred lost quatrains, and hundreds of private prophecies that were also recorded by an assistant. And there are rumors to be others.”
“So he used the Eysen,” Rip said. “I wonder how much he figured out about it. What else he saw.”
After the call with Huang, Rip checked in with Savina. She had originally been employed by the Foundation. The powerful group had once held the second Eysen, until Booker sent an elite squad of Blaxers to “liberate it.” Savina, the thin, beautiful, and brilliant physicist, came with the deal. Her loyalties, above all else, were to the Eysens and the Cosegans who had built them.
“How did it go in Egypt?” Rip asked.
“Promising,” Savina replied. “I’m convinced an Eysen was there thirty-five hundreds years ago.”
“Wow,” Gale said. “That’s by far the earliest we know of.”
“Might be impossible to find, but I have a good team working on it.”
Her long brown hair dropped below her shoulders, plus an affinity for wearing blue jeans and striped tee-shirts made her look like a post-grad student instead of a forty-something top tier scientist. No one would have guessed by her parents—mother a librarian, father a plumber—that she would turn into a child prodigy, but even in her crib, as she counted and organized toys, the signs were obvious. Savina was reading by two, and at four she’d devoured a couple of years’ worth of National Geographic magazines from the family bookshelf. When her mother gave her some advanced math and science books, the spark really ignited. Her mind had added greatly to their understanding of the Eysens, and her theories about the exponential power of linking all nine had been a driving force to find them. “The Cosegans are in trouble,” she often said. “They sent us nine spheres so we could help them. We must not stop until we have them all, or we will lose everything.”
“We got the third,” Rip said as she answered.
She shrieked with delight. “Nostradamus?”
“That’s the best guess.”
“And Booker says we might have another soon?”
“He’s very optimistic,” Gale said.
“He says it may be the Jesus Eysen . . . Can you imagine?”
“And another one that might be shared,” Rip said. Their working theories were that Jesus and Leonardo could be connected since Leonardo painted Jesus with one, and Leonardo and Nostradamus could be connected since they overlapped geographically and time-wise.
“What if Jesus, Leonardo, and Nostradamus all shared the same one?” Gale asked.
“No fun in that,” Savina replied euphorically. “Anyway, if you find another one, we’ll know soon enough.”
Trynn closed his eyes for a minute, letting the Revon take effect. He heard someone approaching. They always find me, he thought.
“We’re almost ready,” Cardd, his assistant, said, finding Trynn in ‘the glass,’ an area of High-peak that protruded out from the main facility and was completely encased in thick glass for optimal viewing of the depths. Outside, underwater lights enhanced the experience. Trynn liked to “get lost” there.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
“If this one works, and Leonardo does what we hope, then the archaeologist will never discover that Eysen. It will remain locked in the cliff for all eternity,”
“Yes . . .” It made Trynn sad to lose Rip, but he knew if they were to be saved, it was absolutely necessary that Rip never find the Eysen. “Once Leonardo discovers his Eysen, he has it for six years. Plenty of time for us to make the right tweaks.”
“So we’ll know soon,” the assistant said, understanding the time differences.
“Very soon.”
“Let’s hope it works.”
“It must work.” Trynn looked back out at the blue-lit depths as a shark swam by. His Etheren friends might have seen it as a bad omen, but he would not allow such thoughts. “Let’s go save the world.”
Fifty-Two
The insertion team handling Rip’s Eysen had the equivalent of GPS instruments to measure the precise location to place that first Eysen. “We do have a few micron measurements to play with,” one of them said.
“I’d rather get it dead on,” the lead scientist countered.
Back then, the crackdowns had not yet begun. However, Trynn knew they’d be coming, and had ordered everyone to be alert for guardians, visuals, and FlyWatchers. “We must make sure no one ever learns of any insertion locations,” he’d told them. “And this one most of all.”
The Insertion for the Da Vinci Eysen was no less tricky—maybe more so, since it took place in Havlos territory. Trynn watched tensely as they slipped in. It was dark there, but their night-vision goggles rendered their surroundings in full magnified detail, as if they were operating on a sunny day.
Cosegans could travel freely unless they ventured into the Havlos’ territories, where registration would be required—another crime Trynn had committed, condoned, or both. Since the Terminus Doom discovery, The Circle had tightened their oversight, concerned that Trynn, or any number of thousands of other scientists, could be taking unauthorized actions with Eysens, or attempting to mine globotite or other forbidden minerals.
“The Da V
inci insertion is going well,” one of them said. “We’ll know the results soon.” The time difference across eleven million years meant that Leonardo’s entire lifetime would play out in the equivalent of minutes in Cosegan time. The five hundred years that followed up to Rip’s discovery could be seen in hours, but the tweaking, the constant replays and changing from Trynn’s manipulations, could last months or years.
He thought back to that hot, humid day when Rip arrived at the Virginia dig site, his partner Larson waiting for him at the cliff, waiting to take out the artifacts he knew already to be extraordinary even though he had yet to actually hold them.
It had been crucial that during the insertion Trynn monitored the discovery. “In the twistings of time, anything can go wrong,” he’d told Cardd. “We will still be able to make corrections, establish settings.”
He’d known what was about to occur as soon as Rip got the Eysen in his hands and Gale Asher began pressing him for details. Soon Rip’s Eysen would light up and forever change the archaeologist—change everything for all of them. The light up part always made Trynn smile. Globotite for eleven million years, he thought. Even with all their accomplishments, it still amazed him.
But then he’d seen helicopters arriving to the dig site at the same time as Rip’s Jeep wound up the logging roads. “Something’s wrong!” he’d said, alarmed.
Dozens of Trynn’s scientists ran into the research section and began sifting through all the holographic projections of different times. Trynn’s pulse quickened as he recalled trying to find the anomaly. “Something shifted . . . where is it, where is it?”
