Fractime Prophesy (Part 3)
Steve Hertig
All characters in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2014 Steve Hertig
ISBN 9781310551932
You can connect with other Fractime fans and the author online at Facebook: https://facebook.com/fractime
Version 2.0
This book contains mature content.
Part 3: Prophesy
"This is what it is to be human: to strive in the face of the certainty of failure…to persist."
- Spider Robinson
Chapter 23
Prime: 30 Oct 2068
Tye's quarters in the Mountain seemed empty without Rodney. He had buried himself in work since the Sojourn, an escape from the fact his Plus twin was MIA. She knew both Higgs' formed a tight bond, a relationship as close as real identical twins.
Her heart ached over his pain as she pressed the small, intricate swirl concealing a secret lock on her dresser drawer and softly sang its multi-syllable access song. As the drawer slowly slid open, an almost imperceptible soft green glow emerged. Tye beheld its contents. It was Amhrán, a kind of living chainmail that had mysteriously come to the family after the funeral of the Family's first matriarch, Zuinall.
Luinan entrusted Amhrán to her before returning to their fractime. Higgs and the rest of Chronos had been deceived believing the EMP alone had caused the earth's magnetic field to reverse as she had added a precious ringlet from Amhrán to the device to enhance its effect to achieve the necessary energy level. She felt the emerald hem where she had plucked the ringlet; the minuscule loss weighed on her heavily.
In the '60s, she used another precious ringlet to realize Chronos' first transit from Prime to Minus. Another ringlet would have been critical to Minus' early TR research, but in an unprecedented move after Frank Hudson's death, the president selected Tristan as the Vice President. She knew Tristan was aware that the Optimum did not have the last component to realize TR functionality. He didn't trust the Optimum and he ensured technology and information were dealt as slowly as possible, if at all, before the transits stopped. Prior to the Sojourn, Optimum researchers had not yet discovered a critical component was missing.
Holding Amhrán, Tye reflected on the ancient cloak's power. A transit with TRs, unlike Amhrán, cannot defeat an active Sojourn and is bound to the mission clock. But unlike TRs, Amhrán was not geographically constrained but it would not translate organic matter with inorganic although sometimes nearly instantaneous translations could give the appearance of such mixed travel. She knew the Time Corps employed a different, sophisticated technology rumored originating in the twentieth century in Prime. How the Time Corps discovered this technology is unknown to her and the Family.
Holding Amhrán to her breast, guilt washed over her. She knew her love for both Higgs' had effectively compromised her mission. She had new priorities to consider now the Sojourn was in place. Such freedom was a strange feeling after so many decades and holding Amhrán soothed her as she considered her next move. She knew a recall would soon dictate her departure from Prime; it was inescapable. But before that, Plus Higgs' status had to be determined. She would have to go to Minus to verify his planned last-second escape from Prime Calgary.
Her quarter's door chimed and its monitor showed Colonel Scott waiting. Tye was surprised as Jenny had been in either the Capitol or Langley for the last several weeks. Tye carefully replaced Amhrán and sealed the drawer.
"Colonel, it is good to see you," Tye said opening her door, "and congratulations on the new job."
Tye was unsure of the title afforded to the wife of the Vice President, so she had decided on military rank.
"Hi Tye. Thanks but it's hardly a job, and we'll have to see if being the second Lady has any real privileges," Jenny said giving her a warm embrace.
"I'm worried," Jenny said as she sat down on one of the quarter's bunks. "I know Higgs is miserable. You're miserable. It is affecting productivity and morale."
Tye knew it was nearly impossible to hide anything from her long-time friend and colleague. "I am asking permission to leave," Tye blurted out. "I must go to Minus to confirm Rodney escaped the blast. I will start with Captain Mackinac."
Jenny studied her face for several seconds. "Permission granted, but how do you plan to get there?"
Tye looked at the dresser holding Amhrán. "There is more I need to tell you." She touched the swirl on the dresser and sang.
Minus: 11 Mar 2068
John stood and stared at the cold stone in a chilly Kentucky winter wind.
He arrived in Minus seven months ago through second-gen TRs. He was welcomed here. His commission was transferred and special considerations given to him as a new citizen. It was amazing the government acted so quickly in providing such low priority considerations such as a driver's license and passport, given World War III had ended only a few years ago. It was obvious the Optimum party was an efficient machine.
John's job was similar to his in Prime, to introduce and explain fractime and Prime's history of transit research. He was restricted to briefing only a few in the highest echelons of the Optimum. In return for TR tech, Prime would receive Minus' faster-than-light technology.
He knew it was a rash decision to leave Prime, and like most of his other life-changing, feeling-based decisions, the one to come to Minus was not at all what he expected. Moreover, seeing his own name on the headstone in front of him was disturbing on all sorts of levels, but not as disturbing as seeing Helen Mackinac's name beside his. She had died in her sleep a few weeks before his arrival. There was no cause determined. Her daughter, Steph, thought it was simply a broken heart.
Steph and he formed a bond of sorts out of some kind of mutual need. He could not quite get his head around it yet. His daughter in Prime died at age eight, but Minus Steph was in her late twenties. Nevertheless, he recognized her when they first met. She was married and expecting a child in summer and had her own life, but she still called to check up on him almost every day.
Yet, life in Minus seemed unnatural. He could only hope he would get used to it. There were few alternatives with travel back to Prime blocked by the Sojourn, and he hated the idea of getting involved with any downline TR research. He was glad the Optimum seemed more interested in maintaining their power base than developing and applying TR tech.
His house in outside DC had belonged to a dignitary who did not make it back to Minus during the recall but now he turned to walk across the cemetery to his small Lexington apartment he rented to be close to Steph on weekends.
The apartment John rented was basic. He had a generous stipend, more than he could spend and more than he wanted to spend. He glanced at the inactive net center. He was tired of all the political turmoil in the news and parallel universes that were not.
He shivered. He just could not seem to get warm despite notching up the heat and the thick, red-checked, flannel shirt he had pulled on after returning from the cemetery. It was almost dinnertime, but he was not hungry and decided again on single malt.
He thought of Jenny's fondness of Talisker as he found a bottle in the kitchen and the net center self activated announcing a reminder for a rendezvous for all Prime and Plus personnel stranded in Minus tomorrow. He already decided not to attend. He knew no one from Prime stuck in Minus.
A knock on the apartment's front door startled him. As he activated the doors security screen, he saw Tye. She was wearing a bright-green cloak, no shoes, no coat.
"Hello Captain," Tye called out, rubbing her hands together against the chill.
"Tye! I can't believe it," he said opening the door and then setting the whiskey bottle on the foyer table next to his apartment's keys. "Of course come in. Come in," he said closing the door behind her.
"It is good to see you," Tye said.
"Yeah," he said sincerely, "same here."
"How are you?" she asked.
He looked away from her to the bottle on the foyer table.
"That good, huh," she said.
"Well, things are working out, sort of," he said taking the whiskey back to the kitchen. "You need some clothes or something? I've got a clean sweat shirt, some track pants and wooly socks," he said digging through a pile of clothes in the small laundry next to the kitchen. "Is that Luinan's transit cloak?"
"It is called Amhrán, kind of a family heirloom. And yes, Luinan wore it when she first met Colonel Scott, and I would love some warm clothes."
John handed her the garments. "These will have to do until tomorrow. Colonel Scott had guessed the cloak was a transit device."
As Tye took the bundle, Amhrán disappeared and John quickly turned around to face the remaining pile of dirty clothes.
"Have you seen Higgs, the Plus Rodney?" Tye asked.
"No. But I've been out of touch a bit," John said being somewhat less than truthful. "Do we know if he made it out in time?" he asked realizing he should have known Plus Higgs' status.
"That is why I'm here."
"You're in luck, there's a meeting of all Prime and Plus personnel in DC tomorrow. Our mission clocks should have allowed everyone who made the recall to attend. Unless he had the old TRs," he said.
"No, the EMP mission used a second-gen, monopole TR set."
"Is everything okay?" He could tell she looked stressed.
"Prime Higgs and I need to find his twin," she said.
The insinuation of a relationship was not lost on John. In fact, it was obvious something between the three was going on prior to his departure from Prime. "Now this is a mission I can complete; we'll go together. I have transport to DC arranged," he lied but knew it would be easy to organize in the morning.
"Thanks, I knew you would be able to help," she said taking a seat at the kitchen table.
"So, tell me how everything went after I left," John said. "The Sojourn obviously is working. How is everyone else? Would you like a drink?"
Tye giggled. "A drink would be great."
"I remember. Soda and a twist?" he said trying to remember where all the ingredients should be and if any glasses were clean.
"Perfect," she said.
John scrubbed a glass from a pile in the sink. He gave a sigh of relieve when the cap to the soda water gave a reassuring hiss as he re-opened the bottle; he rarely used a mixer. He handed the virgin cocktail to Tye, joining her at the kitchen table.
She took a sip then said, "Colonel Scott is fine. Sort of."
John smiled at the jibe.
Tye continued, "The president appointed Tristan Vice President—"
"And Jenny hasn't figured out if that's a good thing yet?" John laughed.
"Exactly," Tye said with a wide grin.
"Dutch and Robert?" John asked.
"Both fine. But Robert was green for a week after they got back from the Moon, and Dutch is working on refining the phased pistol for production for a major military contractor. Mikael has Jenny's old job at Langley."
John rolled his empty glass around its bottom edge on the table.
"No word from Plus, obviously," Tye added.
John knew they were both worried about Carl as well as their plus colleagues and decided to change the subject.
"Any ideas what Prime will do with FTL? Follow Minus' lead?" he asked.
"Future knowledge cannot flow backwards. The Time Accords you know," she replied.
"I was just wondering what if any plans are currently in Prime," he said.
"I do not know," she said. "I have been immersed in designing a monitoring system for the Sojourn; they can be ephemeral by nature."
"And temporary can be subjective, especially for a planetary timescale," John added studying her face.
"It seems stable enough for now," she added.
"Long enough for the Confederation to clean things up upline?" he asked.
"Hard to say. I feel we still don't know the true nature of the enemy," Tye said and then finished her soda.
John knew he had too much time to think about the events of the last few months, but as result, something was bothering him. "There's something nagging me," he said, "Carl's return mission to Minus 1902 appears to be a paradox. He only went back because he found the TIA in the first place. But what if he didn't return?"
"Degenerating fractimes exhibit anomalous and unpredictable temporal structures," Tye explained. "They are the direct result of influences from other fractimes therefore technically such a situation is not truly paradoxical."
"I guess that makes some sense," John said. "And Prime is degenerating?" he asked.
"Quite significantly and, in part, certainly because of copious enemy transits not to mention numerous temporal loops including significant anomalies surrounding the TIA. It is the Time Corps mission to repair such damage. That is why others and I are in this sector; the Family's mission is basically the same as the TC's, but our approach differs."
"And the consequences of such repair work?" John asked.
"There are common events across the fractal sectors that shape the future, not just events in a single fractime shaping its future, but the combined future of all fractimes. This is because at some point in time transits become common between fractimes; their timelines converge. Their collective present and future are dependent on the shape of their pasts. So, the Time Corps believe it is in the best interest of their future to try to buffer any anomalous events that crop up now and then in individual pasts, especially before significant divergence. They have a large database on which to test various situations and tend to be very pragmatic in their approach."
"I get that," John said. "So, what if Carl didn't return to Pelee?"
"The timeline would have healed, at least partially. The topic is—"
"Under study by loads of sisters." John finished her sentence.
Tye giggled.
John adored her childlike sense of humor but also often compared her to the old, sci-fi character Spock. "So if Carl had not returned to Piquet the TIA would never have been found?" he asked.
"You can not apply logic to such a temporal loop and ultimately, the Time Corps would have had no choice without the Sojourn."
More quantum bizarreness, he thought and then asked, "No choice?"
"Erasure. Complete eradication of Primes continuity," Tye said flatly.
"Seems drastic," John said through an obvious smirk while glancing at the bottle of scotch. "Why not just try again in Minus, why sacrifice Prime when upline still exists." John suddenly had a feeling of epiphany creeping over him, followed by goose bumps. "What are the TC and Family protecting?" he asked.
Tye glanced out the now dark kitchen window.
"It's okay, I can guess. It's the FTL drive. Its discovery in the timeline just as Minus is threatened by war is too coincidental."
Tye was silent and then said, "Let's hope the paradox, so to speak, created by the enemy surrounding the TIA, ironically may turn out to be their undoing."
"The legend has fulfilled his destiny then," John said a bit sarcastically.
"Captain, we all have freewill. The Family is direct by nature and the fact the Queen told you about an ancient legend is far from indirect, thus has significant purpose, I'm sure."
"Even for the benefit of an earthling so far downline?"
Tye raised her eyebrows slightly. "I believe Luinan thinks the legend has merit and surely has bearing on or parallels future knowledge that she could not share against the flow of time," she said then hastily added, "although I cannot say with certainty that this is the case."
It was getting late and John caught Tye suppr
essing a yawn. "Time for more talk tomorrow. I'll take the couch. You have the bedroom."
Tye started to protest, but then relaxed as she got up from the kitchen table. "Thanks, Captain."
John smiled and then said, "Get some rest soldier. Let's hope we find Higgs easier than history says it was."
Tye giggled again as she closed the bedroom door behind her.
They arrived at the rendezvous just before noon. They found an e-board that would let them know instantly if anyone searched the listing for them now or wanted contact later.
"Rodney's name is on the list." Tye said excitedly as she sent a notification request.
John was surprised to find only fifty-six extra-Minus personnel listed as making transit to Minus before the Sojourn. Most were from Prime; only a handful was from Plus. In fact, there were many more Optimum security personnel then attendees.
He saw arms waving across the room amid a small, subdued group. Tye must have seen them, too as she began to rush through the security personnel and attendees. John had barely managed to keep up when they found Higgs.
Tye leapt into his arms for a long embrace.
"Captain, good to see you again." Higgs said obviously straining to take his eyes from Tye.
"Glad you made it out." John said shaking Higgs hand firmly.
"Yeah. It was close. We got news there was an aircraft approaching Plus Calgary from the southeast just as Plus' ground defenses smoked it over the city. It was strange. I saw a brilliant flash just as we made transit."
"Several reports confirmed the flash was coincidental with a burst of radiation, but Prime Calgary received no damage." Tye said.
"Tye how did you get here?" Higgs asked. "You weren't on the list."
"Family secret." she said coyly. "Rodney will be relieved you are well."
"Tye, I have to return to Plus," Higgs said almost pleading. "I have an idea that can boost the warp envelope of Minus' FTL drive by at least 40 percent, and that has obvious consequences to our war. I just need some files from the Mountain's lab. There is also talk of a follow-up to the Bonaventure and scoping engineering has already begun."
"When do you want to leave?" Tye asked.
"Ah, as soon as possible." Higgs said. "But I'll need to stop by Prime as well to pick up a project of Rodney's that I know would be better in Plus than Prime," he whispered.
"You'll have to get undressed," she said with a smirk pointing to a vacant net station's cubical off the main room.
John followed them and stood guard at the doorway as they undressed. Gazing across the rendezvous attendees, he smiled considering just how close both Higgs' were to Tye.
She interrupted his daydream as she handed him the CDU he gave her that morning. Amhrán reappeared around her just as his face reddened and with a naked Rodney Higgs in hand, Tye mouthed thanks before vanishing.