“Atheists insist this is proof that God doesn’t exist,” she continued. “But believers think we just aren’t seeing the big picture. That God is playing eight moves ahead. The boy breaks his leg, and we can’t see that God’s endgame is to save the boy’s life.”
“It’s certainly a lot to think about,” said Redford. “As if we don’t have enough on our minds already,” he mused.
“No doubt,” agreed Anna. “And this line of thought provides a slightly different perspective on the Gatekeepers’ motivations. The twenty-seven intelligences have scores of theories as to what the Gatekeepers might be up to, but most of these see their interference in a negative light. But maybe what they’re doing is necessary and compassionate, if only we could see the big picture.”
“It’s impossible to say,” replied the colonel. “But as for you—as for any of us—I think we have to live our lives and make the best, most compassionate decisions we can with what we know. Yes, maybe some will be wrong. But what other choice do we have? We can only decide based on what we know. If we think about this any other way we’d be paralyzed. We have to be ants, striving to build, striving to be the best ants we can be, putting on blinders to the fact that at any moment a boot can descend from above and wipe us out. We can’t live fearing the boot, fearing wrong decisions, or giving up on life because of uncertainty.”
Anna grinned.
“What?” said Redford. “I’m serious”
“I know you are. I’m just smiling because I love how you put that. You may just be the most impressive man I’ve ever met.”
Redford smiled and drew her into his arms, and soon they were making love yet again, finding reserves of energy neither knew they had. When they finished, they agreed they needed to get four or five hours of shut-eye. They were scheduled to fly back to Evie headquarters in the morning, and it was sure to be another eventful day.
“Before we go to sleep,” said Redford, “if the Vorian portal does reappear, which Tom thinks is now more likely since the Tart portal just did, will you agree to become their admiral? Have you thought about it?”
“I have,” said Anna. “And the answer is absolutely not. Maybe in ten years or so. Maybe. But not before then. I have too much to do here, and too much to learn.”
“I think that’s a wise choice,” said Redford. “On the other hand,” he added wryly, “I’ve always dreamed of sleeping with the admiral in command of a fleet of starships.”
“You have, huh?”
“Absolutely.”
Anna laughed. “Well, sorry to crush your dream, Steve,” she replied. “But maybe you can sleep with whoever—or whatever—is in command of the allied fleet right now. You never know,” she finished, raising her eyebrows, “you just might have a shot.”
PART 5
“Physics is the only profession in which prophecy is not only accurate but routine.”
—Neil deGrasse Tyson
43
The self-piloting Black Ops helicopter flew to Hill Air Force Base to refuel, and then began its flight to Evie headquarters in Arizona in full stealth mode. The mighty aircraft carried only three passengers: Colonel Stephen Redford, Detective Anna Abbott, and Vorian Chief Scientist Kaitlyn O’Connor.
Vega’s compound had a large selection of firearms, and each of the Vors were trained on how to use them, so both of Redford’s companions armed themselves for the trip—Kaitlyn, out of an abundance of caution, and the detective because she felt naked without a firearm.
While Anna trusted the colonel implicitly, she wasn’t willing to trust anyone else in his organization. Not until she had the chance to meet with them and size them up. For this reason, Redford had agreed to take but a single Vorian to his headquarters to meet the family, while promising not to give away the location of Vega and his invisible compound in Utah.
The colonel planned to learn what progress his team had made on the Foria front, and in their analysis of the Tartarian corpses they continued to examine, and then determine the best way to ease his people, and his superiors, into the true situation. Assuming they passed his Anna Abbott litmus test.
But none of this would happen right away. First Redford wanted to get the lay of the land and plan out just what he would disclose, and how he would disclose it, which might take several days. He had now spent considerable time in discussions with the Vors, and he wasn’t about to be overruled on decisions that could well impact the fate of humanity by someone with a shadow of his knowledge and experience, or who was innately paranoid of extraterrestrials.
Once he did bring everyone up to speed, he felt that Kaitlyn would be the ideal Vor for them to meet. A scientist who could dazzle his people in any number of fields, and who would come across as unthreatening. And someone many of them could get to know first, before Redford revealed that she was an extraterrestrial.
The three passengers were ninety minutes into their flight to Arizona when a call came in from Tom Vega, which Redford channeled through the aircraft’s speaker system for all to hear.
“Our portal just reappeared!” began Vega ecstatically. “I just got word.”
“Outstanding,” said Anna. But in the back of her mind, the nagging Zen Master parable wouldn’t go away. Maybe this was wonderful news. It sure seemed that way. But maybe not. The only thing she knew for sure was that she hadn’t experienced a dull moment since her dinner on Thursday.
“Is it as large as the recent Tart portal was?” asked Redford.
“No. The opposite. It can only transport two at a time. Since the fluctuation pattern is identical to what it was before, we’ll only be able to send people through every forty hours or so. We have no idea why the sizes of the recent Tart portal and this one are so asymmetrical.”
“But then again,” noted Anna, “you have no idea why they’d be symmetrical, either.”
“This is also true,” admitted Vega. “The Tart portal vanished right after their horde came through. I’m hopeful that while ours is smaller, it will stay active for longer. But even that isn’t critical. Because we now have the opportunity we’ve been working toward for thousands of years.”
The alien paused for what seemed like forever. “So what do you say, Anna?” he continued finally, and it was clear that he was extremely nervous. “Will you go through the portal with me? Will you become our fleet admiral?”
Anna considered how best to let the poor alien down, but before she could utter her first word she was hit in the stomach with the most powerful intuitive signal she had ever received. She fought to even breathe.
There could be no doubt what response her subconscious insisted that she make. She considered ignoring it for a moment. She was so tired of being controlled by a cryptic hidden Oracle, so tired of following orders whose rationale she didn’t understand. But in the end she knew that she had to obey and hope that her hidden mind knew what it was doing.
“Yes,” she replied. “ I’ll go through with you, Tom. And I’ll lead the allied fleet as you’ve requested.”
“What?” barked Redford beside her, looking as though she had betrayed him. And she had. This was a complete reversal from what she had told him just the night before.
“Thank you!” said Vega, whose relief couldn’t be more palpable. “You won’t regret this, Anna,” he gushed. “You’re going to change the galaxy.”
Anna gasped and held her head with both hands as two visions entered her mind in quick succession. And while each vision lasted only a few seconds, both were seared into her mind’s eye like a cattle brand.
In the first vision she and Tom Vega were approaching the Vorian portal in Albania, with Steve Redford looking on, a melancholy expression on his face. The portal loomed in front of her, a shimmering, mesmerizing hole in the fabric of the cosmos, which hurt her mind to look at. It was something that human eyes had never been evolved to see, so it appeared to be made up of every possible color, and no color, all at the same time. Its perimeter continuously changed shape, like a hyperactive a
moeba, and its center, large enough to walk through, pulsed and throbbed as if alive. The movement of the hole was fluid, like cascading water, but water with a million facets, as if made of five-dimensional diamonds rather than H2O.
It was magnificent, spectacular. But more than anything else, it radiated such unimaginable power that it was terrifying on a visceral level, like an approaching wall of water during a tsunami, a hundred feet high, or the inside of an active volcano.
Anna took one last glance around her at the Earth she was leaving. The woods were as peaceful as they could be, and other than Steve Redford, not a single soul was in sight. And then she and Tom Vega stepped through, and the vision was over.
The second vision was at the same approximate location but was an absolute horror show, a bloody skirmish so ferocious and vast it could have been ripped from a Lord of the Rings battle scene. Anna somehow knew without looking that nearly every Vor and every Tart on Earth was congregated near the portal, either to help her reach it or prevent her from doing the same.
The surrounding forest had become the ultimate killing field. Gruesome tattered bodies, many in pieces, were strewn about the ground like so many autumn leaves, and intestines and brain matter were dripping from branches like Christmas ornaments. At least five hundred combatants were already dead, most of them Tarts, since despite having far greater numbers, Anna’s clairvoyance had almost balanced the scales.
Almost.
Anna somehow knew the battle’s history, even though she was only seeing a brief slice of it, although she didn’t know if Redford was in the forest, or still back in the States. US special forces commandos had been helping the Tarts, and their involvement had tipped the scales in the Tarts’ favor. There were well over a hundred of these American troops swarming the woods, and they were ruthlessly efficient.
And then the unthinkable happened. A Tart with a machine gun emerged from behind a tree, right next to a Navy SEAL, and they both began to fire. Even Anna’s precognition was helpless against the onslaught of bullets, which she couldn’t prevent from turning her body into bloody Swiss cheese.
She inhaled loudly as the vision ceased, as abruptly as it had begun, and she had to steady herself, even seated in the helo.
Anna was vaguely aware of Redford’s panicked voice, seemingly a hundred miles distant and under water, calling her name worriedly.
She was finally able to reply, to assure him that she was okay, and then launched into a description of what she had seen in great detail, while her fellow passengers and Tom Vega listened in dismay.
“I don’t know what to make of this,” said the alien leader despondently when she had finished. “Your description of the portal and its surroundings are exactly right. Even though these are details I’ve never shared with you. So there is no doubt these visions were real. But I don’t understand why you’d have two different visions of what seems like the same event: your attempted trip through the portal.”
“Is it possible that both futures are balanced on a razor’s edge?” said the colonel. “Each equally probable?”
“No,” said Kaitlyn bluntly. “Anna sees one future, and this future comes to pass. No probability about it. True, after seeing this future, she can tell others about it, who now have the power to change it, or she can change it herself. But if she doesn’t do either of these, this one single future is cemented in. Remember?”
The chief scientist paused in thought. “After seeing the first vision just now, Anna did nothing in the instant before the second vision came about that could have possibly changed this initial future. Especially not something that could have changed it so dramatically. Changed it into the absolute carnage she saw next.”
“We’ve spent a single day doing experiments,” said Redford. “One. That’s it. So we can’t say anything with certainty.”
“I agree,” said Anna. “We’re up against the unknown here. Maybe we’ll understand how this happened at some point. Maybe not. But for now, let’s just make sure my first vision comes to pass.”
The detective paused. “Just to double-check, Tom,” she continued, “the Tarts don’t know the location of your portal, right?”
“Right,” said Vega through the helicopter’s speaker system. “We found theirs thousands of years ago. But they never found ours. Because by the time they arrived it had already disappeared. Same thing this time.”
Redford was shaking his head and looked utterly horrified. “What disturbs me the most about this second vision,” he said, “is that US special forces were helping the Tarts. How can that be? Who deployed them in a foreign country? And why would they ever turn on the Vors, who are our allies? Worse, why would they help the Tarts kill Anna? It makes no sense, and it’s highly troubling.”
There was a long silence in the helicopter as everyone mulled this over. Redford was right, and there were no good explanations.
Anna sighed. “Here’s what I’d like to do,” she said finally. “We’ll stay at Steve’s facility for a few days, meet his people, and introduce them to Kaitlyn, as planned. Hopefully, during this time, I’ll get additional visions that will clarify the situation. If so, we can act accordingly. If not, we’ll travel to the Vorian portal. Just me, Steve, and Tom. We’ll make sure no other Vorians are there. This will ensure that my first vision is the true one, since the second requires a large contingent of Vors.”
“Now that you’ve had these visions with so much time to spare,” said Vega, “I can’t imagine that either one will take place exactly the way you saw it.”
“We can’t make that assumption,” said Anna. “I still want to be proactive in making sure the second one never comes to pass.”
“I agree,” said Kaitlyn. “We know there’s a serious flaw in our understanding of how this works, or Anna wouldn’t have had a dual vision in the first place.”
“You’re right,” said Vega. “Which is why Anna’s plan sounds sensible to me. If we rush her to the portal before we know what’s going on, we risk everything. Hopefully, she’ll gain more clarity on this situation soon. Just don’t wait too long, Anna. Because if the portal disappears before we get to it, we’ll never forgive ourselves.”
“Understood,” said the detective.
“In the meantime,” added Vega, “the next time the portal is active, I’ll send a messenger through alerting Vor not to send anyone this direction until the last minute that it’s active. Until further notice. That way, during the vast majority of its period of activity, it will be earmarked for your use only, until I get you to Vor.”
“I don’t understand how these portals work,” said Anna. “How is it that you can only send two people through every forty hours?”
“When the Albanian portal is present,” said the alien leader, “it most often appears as a perfectly spherical mirror, reflecting its surroundings. This is its inactive form. And when it disappears, which it has now done twice, there is no evidence it was ever there. But when it is present, every forty or so hours, it changes from reflective to the appearance that you saw in your vision. For about two hours. During this time, it’s active and ready to transport. At any time during this period, two beings can go through. Two can go from Vor to Earth, or two can go from Earth to Vor. Or one can go to Earth, and another to Vor. But after two have gone through, the portal immediately reverts to inactivity, and the forty-hour clock starts again.”
“And you have no idea why they work this way?” said Redford.
“None,” replied Vega. “And they all vary. Some are active almost always. Some less than once per year. And as we’ve seen, their sizes vary. Basically, they play by their own rules. We’re in the same boat your ancient scientists were when it came to celestial mechanics. They could track heavenly bodies across the sky, but they had no idea of the underlying physics that dictated these movements. Like them, we can observe the periodicity of the portals easily enough, but we have no idea of the physics that might dictate this periodicity.”
Redford shook
his head. “That’s assuming that physical laws are dictating the portals’ properties,” he said. “Which may not be true. They may just be set based on the Gatekeepers’ whims.”
“This is probably the case,” said Vega. “But the important point for now is that we won’t waste an active portal on anyone but Anna. No one will go through until the last minute, until they’re sure she isn’t coming to Vor during that round of activity.”
“Then I guess we’re all set,” said the clairvoyant detective, swallowing hard.
Vega nodded. “Good luck at Evie headquarters, Anna,” he said, his tone pained. He exhaled loudly. “And please contact me immediately if you have another vision.”
“Will do,” replied Anna as Redford ended the connection.
Anna felt sorry for the alien leader. He was at the height of ecstasy after she had agreed to become his fleet admiral. But just seconds later, after her two visions, he was forced to consider a future that could not have been more horrific.
Not that Anna was thrilled about this possible future, either. Seeing machine gun fire tearing into her body wasn’t her idea of fun.
She only wished she could be certain that the steps she was taking to ensure this vision never came to pass weren’t the very steps that led to it happening in the first place.
44
The helicopter landed at Evie’s helipad and a civilian SUV was waiting, with one of Redford’s low-level functionaries driving. As they drove away from the helipad, another of Redford’s underlings pulled up to the aircraft with a fuel truck to top off its tank. Redford had issued a standing order long before that all incoming helicopters should be refueled as soon as possible so they were always at maximum readiness.
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