A Paradox Broken, page 2
I lowered my head while an unstoppable smile yanked the corners of my lips up. He was right. I was being melancholy for the sake of argument, when I knew nothing would stop me from defying everything that was thrown at me.
There he is! Tim exclaimed with an accompanying sound clip of applause as we continued to travel through the blizzard of colorful sand. Welcome back, leg butt!
“Thanks, Betamax.”
Yo—I—How dare … ! Tim began, unable to process the epic insult.
“I’m sorry. Would a floppy disk have been better?”
I’ll show you a floppy disk … he muttered just under his breath.
“I, uh … Phrasing?”
After what I could only describe as a few minutes had passed—because we were in a tesseract where time, ironically, wasn’t a unit of measurement—Tim spoke up.
Are we there yet?
“How am I supposed to know?!”
How did you arrive in the lab before?
“I … I focused on Alison.”
Well, do that again. But this time, focus on the message she left behind for you.
Remembering what my baby girl had written in the letter, I imagined a VHS box of Alice in Wonderland. With a set objective in mind, the sands started to blur past like a hail of bullets from a platoon of minigun-wielding soldiers, causing a growing bubble of worry to try and fill my chest.
From somewhere in the distance, I heard a hiss of what sounded like, “Frrrooooossst.”
Turning toward where I thought the noise originated from, I lifted myself up until I was standing on the surface and peered down the stream. Immediately, I wished I hadn’t.
“Jesus …” I mouthed before my jaw went slack and my eyes tried to bulge from their sockets.
That can’t be good …
A being comprised of an angry orange light flew toward us like a rocket.
If my eyes were made of flesh, then they might have seared at how bright the man shone, like staring directly into the sun. A streaking ball of violent energy whizzed past my head faster than a bullet, nearly dropping me to my ass in surprise.
As the star man grew closer, I watched in frozen horror as he lifted his hand to lob another death sphere at me.
Without me telling it to do so, my right arm flashed upward right as the ball was set to smash into my chest. I was aware of a powerful tingling that erupted down my forearm as the sphere was deflected.
Making sure my arm hadn’t been blown off with a quick visual inspection, I felt a shallow wave of relief … until I heard where the sphere had crashed.
Looking up, I watched in fascinated horror as the colorful river of time directly above us violently shook like a swimming pool during a city-leveling earthquake. Vibrant waves crested outward in all directions from the point of impact, like solar flares fleeing the sun, before dramatically slowing. The farther the colorful sands of time flew from their river of origin, the more they dulled before fading into nothing.
Wave after wave exploded in beautiful crests before slowing and disappearing.
“What’s happening?”
I—I don’t know, Andrew. But if I had to guess, Tim started before audibly gulping, that stream of time is being destroyed.
“Why would he risk destroying the timeline just to—”
In answer, Retnuh Ordune bellowed, “FRRROOOOOOOOST!”
Above us, a massive wave expanded in all directions at the point of impact. It was like watching a superpowered snowplow through a kaleidoscope as it tore through a street after a blizzard, shooting enormous sheets of snow outward in a full circle.
I could feel the force of the explosion as it rushed both toward the future and the past, making me worry about my timeline, the one I stood upon. I had to shield my head with my arms as what I could only describe as a pyroclastic cloud rushed to envelop me.
May I suggest we run? Heh-heh, Tim nervously suggested. I could almost picture him loosening the tie around his throat that he wasn’t wearing.
The stream I stood on began to waver like a steel bridge on the verge of collapsing while my body was subjected to an unimaginable heat.
“JESUS!” I shouted before I was thrown off the timeline like an older brother double bouncing their younger sibling on a trampoline. Except the force used would have been enough to send said kid high enough to touch the clouds.
As I flew, I glimpsed Retnuh standing where I had been, the wave of heat being blown away as the man rested both palms on the original timeline. An invisible wave rushed out in both directions, arresting the bucking movement of the stream while the universe above it faded from view.
Retnuh grew smaller with each passing second, until he looked like nothing more than an ant on the calm, glass top surface of my home.
“How—” I started to ask when I crashed into a sea of brilliant colors. I didn’t feel the impact, nor was there any resistance, and I flew out the other side and into another stream of sand.
With a focus of will, I tried to grasp at the river, feeling the briefest of impacts on my hands. Then I was out the other side and soaring to yet another stream; though this time, I was flying noticeably slower.
Using all my focus, I demanded my body stop as I entered the next timeline. To my relief, I arrested my momentum with half of my body sticking out the top of the smooth timeline.
Once again, I couldn’t help but feel like I was looking at the Norse rainbow bridge.
Doing something I knew I shouldn’t, I inched myself to the edge and looked down to where I had come from. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but had to see it anyway.
Row after row of identical streams blocked the view, filling me with a sense of being lost that only a child separated from their parent at a busy mall could understand.
“FROOOOOST!” Retnuh bellowed from somewhere far away.
He’s looking for you, Andrew! May I suggest we, oh, I don’t know, fragging hide?!
“Good idea,” I replied before slowly easing myself into the stream like fully submerging myself in a swimming pool. The sands weren’t moving this time, and it served to confirm that it was because I wasn’t moving through it.
Focus on Alison’s research. Maybe we can still find what we are looking for in this timeline.
“Alison,” I breathed out, and everything in me went still as I closed my eyes.
I didn’t feel time flow around me, but I could see the dance of brilliant light through my clenched eyes almost like a strobe light, but with each flash being a different color.
Opening my eyes, I kept my mind and heart fixated on finding the truth. The truth that would save my family.
It didn’t take long before I was approaching my wheren. I didn’t know how I knew, I just knew …
The river seemed to widen in all directions, including vertically, until identifiable walls, floor, and ceiling began to form all around me. As quickly as the fast-forward through time started, it slowed before stopping entirely as a room continued to take shape from the sands of time that apparently knew where to go with nothing more than a willful thought from me.
Without having to wait for the scene to coalesce and showcase distinguishing features, I already knew where I was.
The beginning of the end …
CHAPTER 1
Cool, stale air washed over me just as the colorful sands solidified, and the room I found myself in went completely dark. Where there had been beautiful light from the billions of grains all around me, now there was a deep abyss.
I shot my face from left to right, worried whatever mystical voodoo I had done to arrive here had somehow blinded me.
My movement triggered a motion sensor, which flicked on clinical lights reminiscent of any commercial building or doctor’s office.
01 … Tim breathed out in what sounded like amazement intermixed with disbelief. I couldn’t tell if it was the prayer of someone about to die from something unstoppable, or from a man on the precipice of death in the middle of a sweltering desert that had just crawled on hands and knees to a pristine oasis with crystal-clear water.
“What?” I whispered in response to his AI equivalent of me saying God. My eyes darted all around searching for Retnuh hiding in the shadows of the laboratory, ready to tear this timeline apart too.
Something was different, however. In the brief memories I had absorbed from Drew’s timeline, I didn’t remember there being stairs leading up.
I am unable to process how it is you are able to do the things that, well, you do. It—It defies all logic!
Letting out a sigh from a tight chest that seemed to be frozen in place, I sucked in a deep, lung-expanding breath. The air, though musty, was like sweet nectar to my lungs, reminding me I hadn’t been able to breathe while in the time … thingy. What had Tim called it—a tesseract?
Letting out a huge breath, I sucked in another, feeling confused while also marveling at being made of pure energy to the point where I didn’t need oxygen to function. I could even speak out loud somehow, even without having to force air past my vocal cords—if I had any, that is, while being made seemingly out of nothing more than light.
Looking down, I patted my left arm, feeling the surprisingly warm Clepsydra that housed Tim’s consciousness. Or did it? He had been with me in the tesseract. But that idea took a back seat as I tried to get my chaotic thoughts in order.
I attempted to focus on the mission, but now that we were safe, my mind wouldn’t let me think about anything else except for what had just happened.
Without realizing that my body was moving on its own, I sat on the edge of the couch like a child about to get reprimanded by his parents.
“Tim … what the hell happened to that … that—that timeline, I guess you would call it?” I asked as my fingers absentmindedly glided over the surprisingly well-preserved cushion.
I can only surmise by the dissipation of the particles that left the linear confines of the structure that the particular timeline in question was erased from all of existence.
I thought about the colorful waves that were thrown away from the river, remembering how the fast-moving projectiles had first slowed before fading to a dull tone … and then disappearing entirely.
“How … How do you know that for sure?” I knew I was practically begging Tim to let me know he had made a mistake and that all was well, because my mind just couldn’t fathom an entire timeline being erased. All the lives that had lived on it, both past and future … just gone.
I don’t know for sure. But it would stand to reason that anything which ruptures to the point where its exploded particles fade into presumed nonexistence probably signifies the original structure no longer functions. Then again, I’m not a keyboard expert who spent an hour watching YouTube videos in search of confirmation bias that matched my already established beliefs.
“That … came out of nowhere … ?”
Oh, uh, sorry. Sometimes, the might of my sarcasm surprises even me.
There were a few seconds of silence before I willed myself to ignore where he had gone slightly off the tracks, and digested his message.
“Retnuh destroyed an entire timeline,” I said with a forced sigh in an effort to relax as I leaned back on the couch. But no matter how I mimicked the actions that preluded comfort, I just couldn’t release the tension in my heart and muscles. “He basically threw a grenade inside a house of glass. Why?”
Now, that is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Why was Retnuh, presumably, willing to destroy anything and everything in order to ensure your demise?
I thought about the question and let my mouth speak as my thoughts tried to formulate full-blown ideas at the same time. “To try and stop different variants of me?”
Hmm. I don’t think that’s quite right. But there could be something else there.
“Like what?”
If you put a metaphorical gun to my head, I would say that Retnuh is attempting to erase you from, well, any timeline.
“Any timeline …” I mouthed, realizing the endless sea of universes I had witnessed. “But he almost destroyed our timeline, right? Would he … Would he really risk his own home?”
Knowing Retnuh, I honestly have no idea.
“Hmph,” I agreed, running a hand down my face. “He is the type to burn his entire house down after seeing just one insect in the kitchen.”
Well if that isn’t the truth, Tim half chuckled before adding, Or maybe he simply didn’t anticipate how strong his attack would be?
“Do you think it, um, was emotionally charged? I mean, he did sound extra pissed off. Right? Even for Retnuh.”
You, yourself, have proven that emotions are able to push you past boundaries thought impenetrable.
I sat frozen as his words swirled around my head.
“I wonder how much of the tess-thingy he could have destroyed …”
Tesseract, Tim corrected. And if anger drives Retnuh’s power on top of his already limitless determination, then I can only imagine the entire structure is subject to his whims.
We sat without words as silence drifted among the stagnant air, absorbing how insane the Clockman, Retnuh Ordune, truly was.
“How did he even know where we were?”
Well, he didn’t know our precise location within the tesseract.
“He was damn close enough!”
Fair. Yeah, that’s fair.
“So how’d he do it, Tim?”
Andrew, Tim started in growing exasperation, I don’t even know how you do what you do, and I’m directly linked to your body … and possibly your mind, judging by my existence inside the tesseract. Without more data to analyze, I would only be offering a knee-jerk guess at this juncture.
I could feel my entire body slump where I sat, as if the life were being drained out of me.
“There’s just no stopping this guy …”
My wandering eyes caught a bookshelf which had the bottommost space occupied by vintage VHS tapes. Before my mind could even comprehend what I was looking at, my subconscious vigorously scanned the titles. Smack-dab in the middle was Alice in Wonderland.
I didn’t even realize I had shot to my feet until I heard the heavy thumping of my footsteps as I rushed to the bookcase. Dropping to my knees hard enough to rattle my teeth, I slipped my hands on either side of the cassette and all but threw the other movies to the floor.
There, sitting upright with a fine layer of dust, was my prize. Alison’s research lay within my grasp, and the answer to save my family.
Are you alright, Andrew? Tim asked softly as I just gawked at the VHS box. You are acting like a ravenous zombie who’s stumbled upon a paraplegic Mensa convention.
“I’m fine,” I replied in a barely audible monotone. Then his words registered. “Wait, what?”
Yeah, that was a bit of a stretch, wasn’t it? Hmm, I should have said a convention cohosted by the Paralympics and Mensa. Well, no, that doesn’t signify that each of the participants are both hyperintelligent—for humans—and mobility challenged.
“I …”
Because zombies crave brains? Right? And I don’t know about you, but if I were a zombie, I’d only select the grade A, primo cuts that only a juicy skull packed with dense neurons could offer. Yum!
My own brain started to formulate why adding the paraplegic portion could be easily considered risqué, if not offensive, but I just didn’t care with the VHS box in my hands. Plus, I surmised Tim was trying to manipulate my stress by saying something so odd that my racing mind would hiccup while attempting to process it.
There we go. That’s better, Tim said, confirming my suspicions. Maybe take a few deep breaths to lower your heart rate? It spiked—dangerously—when you saw the bookshelf.
“It’s here,” I whispered, holding the cassette box like Gollum cradling the One Ring.
But it won’t do you any good if you have a stroke or heart attack.
“That’s what I have you for, Tim,” I answered while gliding my fingers down the cover, leaving clean streaks in the light dust coating.
The container felt heavy, and I opened it to find it neatly packed with long, rectangular-shaped objects all comprised of stainless steel.
“What are these?” I asked, pulling one out at random and lifting it to inspect it. It was about the size of a pencil in both length and girth, with no discernible markings.
Hard drives, Tim answered. I looked at either end, expecting to see some sort of USB-type connection, but as with the rest of the casing, there was none.
These are from your somewhat distant future, Andrew, he explained, sensing my wordless question. Somewhere near when Alison graduated, a new form of Bluetooth device emerged that allowed for full self-containment.
“What does that mean? No wires?”
Precisely. The apparatus is powered by the signal from the host device.
I thought about what he was saying as I continued to roll the device over between my fingers.
“So then, you should be able to just connect to it, right?”
Yes. All I need you to do is touch the device to my housing, and I’ll be able to extract all the data fairly quickly.
“Quickly?” I asked, doing as he suggested. “Why not instantly?”
Pfft. You ever try putting a floppy disk in a Macbook?
“N-No?
Right, because the technologies are not only different architectures but vastly different ages, Tim explained as a soft chime indicated he was done.
“So I should be impressed that you are able to do this at all, is what you are saying?” I asked, carefully setting the first stick down and picking up another to repeat the process.
Damn right.
Within a few seconds, he finished downloading the data from the device, and I repeated the process by grabbing the third.
“Why can’t I just hover you over all of them and let you collect all the data at once? Isn’t that what you normally do?”
Unfortunately, Tim started with a sigh, this version of Bluetooth, though much more advanced than what you are used to, Andrew, still has its limitations. Gives and takes, if you will.
“Like what?” I asked, grabbing the next stick in the VHS box. There were about twelve left to go after this one.
There he is! Tim exclaimed with an accompanying sound clip of applause as we continued to travel through the blizzard of colorful sand. Welcome back, leg butt!
“Thanks, Betamax.”
Yo—I—How dare … ! Tim began, unable to process the epic insult.
“I’m sorry. Would a floppy disk have been better?”
I’ll show you a floppy disk … he muttered just under his breath.
“I, uh … Phrasing?”
After what I could only describe as a few minutes had passed—because we were in a tesseract where time, ironically, wasn’t a unit of measurement—Tim spoke up.
Are we there yet?
“How am I supposed to know?!”
How did you arrive in the lab before?
“I … I focused on Alison.”
Well, do that again. But this time, focus on the message she left behind for you.
Remembering what my baby girl had written in the letter, I imagined a VHS box of Alice in Wonderland. With a set objective in mind, the sands started to blur past like a hail of bullets from a platoon of minigun-wielding soldiers, causing a growing bubble of worry to try and fill my chest.
From somewhere in the distance, I heard a hiss of what sounded like, “Frrrooooossst.”
Turning toward where I thought the noise originated from, I lifted myself up until I was standing on the surface and peered down the stream. Immediately, I wished I hadn’t.
“Jesus …” I mouthed before my jaw went slack and my eyes tried to bulge from their sockets.
That can’t be good …
A being comprised of an angry orange light flew toward us like a rocket.
If my eyes were made of flesh, then they might have seared at how bright the man shone, like staring directly into the sun. A streaking ball of violent energy whizzed past my head faster than a bullet, nearly dropping me to my ass in surprise.
As the star man grew closer, I watched in frozen horror as he lifted his hand to lob another death sphere at me.
Without me telling it to do so, my right arm flashed upward right as the ball was set to smash into my chest. I was aware of a powerful tingling that erupted down my forearm as the sphere was deflected.
Making sure my arm hadn’t been blown off with a quick visual inspection, I felt a shallow wave of relief … until I heard where the sphere had crashed.
Looking up, I watched in fascinated horror as the colorful river of time directly above us violently shook like a swimming pool during a city-leveling earthquake. Vibrant waves crested outward in all directions from the point of impact, like solar flares fleeing the sun, before dramatically slowing. The farther the colorful sands of time flew from their river of origin, the more they dulled before fading into nothing.
Wave after wave exploded in beautiful crests before slowing and disappearing.
“What’s happening?”
I—I don’t know, Andrew. But if I had to guess, Tim started before audibly gulping, that stream of time is being destroyed.
“Why would he risk destroying the timeline just to—”
In answer, Retnuh Ordune bellowed, “FRRROOOOOOOOST!”
Above us, a massive wave expanded in all directions at the point of impact. It was like watching a superpowered snowplow through a kaleidoscope as it tore through a street after a blizzard, shooting enormous sheets of snow outward in a full circle.
I could feel the force of the explosion as it rushed both toward the future and the past, making me worry about my timeline, the one I stood upon. I had to shield my head with my arms as what I could only describe as a pyroclastic cloud rushed to envelop me.
May I suggest we run? Heh-heh, Tim nervously suggested. I could almost picture him loosening the tie around his throat that he wasn’t wearing.
The stream I stood on began to waver like a steel bridge on the verge of collapsing while my body was subjected to an unimaginable heat.
“JESUS!” I shouted before I was thrown off the timeline like an older brother double bouncing their younger sibling on a trampoline. Except the force used would have been enough to send said kid high enough to touch the clouds.
As I flew, I glimpsed Retnuh standing where I had been, the wave of heat being blown away as the man rested both palms on the original timeline. An invisible wave rushed out in both directions, arresting the bucking movement of the stream while the universe above it faded from view.
Retnuh grew smaller with each passing second, until he looked like nothing more than an ant on the calm, glass top surface of my home.
“How—” I started to ask when I crashed into a sea of brilliant colors. I didn’t feel the impact, nor was there any resistance, and I flew out the other side and into another stream of sand.
With a focus of will, I tried to grasp at the river, feeling the briefest of impacts on my hands. Then I was out the other side and soaring to yet another stream; though this time, I was flying noticeably slower.
Using all my focus, I demanded my body stop as I entered the next timeline. To my relief, I arrested my momentum with half of my body sticking out the top of the smooth timeline.
Once again, I couldn’t help but feel like I was looking at the Norse rainbow bridge.
Doing something I knew I shouldn’t, I inched myself to the edge and looked down to where I had come from. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but had to see it anyway.
Row after row of identical streams blocked the view, filling me with a sense of being lost that only a child separated from their parent at a busy mall could understand.
“FROOOOOST!” Retnuh bellowed from somewhere far away.
He’s looking for you, Andrew! May I suggest we, oh, I don’t know, fragging hide?!
“Good idea,” I replied before slowly easing myself into the stream like fully submerging myself in a swimming pool. The sands weren’t moving this time, and it served to confirm that it was because I wasn’t moving through it.
Focus on Alison’s research. Maybe we can still find what we are looking for in this timeline.
“Alison,” I breathed out, and everything in me went still as I closed my eyes.
I didn’t feel time flow around me, but I could see the dance of brilliant light through my clenched eyes almost like a strobe light, but with each flash being a different color.
Opening my eyes, I kept my mind and heart fixated on finding the truth. The truth that would save my family.
It didn’t take long before I was approaching my wheren. I didn’t know how I knew, I just knew …
The river seemed to widen in all directions, including vertically, until identifiable walls, floor, and ceiling began to form all around me. As quickly as the fast-forward through time started, it slowed before stopping entirely as a room continued to take shape from the sands of time that apparently knew where to go with nothing more than a willful thought from me.
Without having to wait for the scene to coalesce and showcase distinguishing features, I already knew where I was.
The beginning of the end …
CHAPTER 1
Cool, stale air washed over me just as the colorful sands solidified, and the room I found myself in went completely dark. Where there had been beautiful light from the billions of grains all around me, now there was a deep abyss.
I shot my face from left to right, worried whatever mystical voodoo I had done to arrive here had somehow blinded me.
My movement triggered a motion sensor, which flicked on clinical lights reminiscent of any commercial building or doctor’s office.
01 … Tim breathed out in what sounded like amazement intermixed with disbelief. I couldn’t tell if it was the prayer of someone about to die from something unstoppable, or from a man on the precipice of death in the middle of a sweltering desert that had just crawled on hands and knees to a pristine oasis with crystal-clear water.
“What?” I whispered in response to his AI equivalent of me saying God. My eyes darted all around searching for Retnuh hiding in the shadows of the laboratory, ready to tear this timeline apart too.
Something was different, however. In the brief memories I had absorbed from Drew’s timeline, I didn’t remember there being stairs leading up.
I am unable to process how it is you are able to do the things that, well, you do. It—It defies all logic!
Letting out a sigh from a tight chest that seemed to be frozen in place, I sucked in a deep, lung-expanding breath. The air, though musty, was like sweet nectar to my lungs, reminding me I hadn’t been able to breathe while in the time … thingy. What had Tim called it—a tesseract?
Letting out a huge breath, I sucked in another, feeling confused while also marveling at being made of pure energy to the point where I didn’t need oxygen to function. I could even speak out loud somehow, even without having to force air past my vocal cords—if I had any, that is, while being made seemingly out of nothing more than light.
Looking down, I patted my left arm, feeling the surprisingly warm Clepsydra that housed Tim’s consciousness. Or did it? He had been with me in the tesseract. But that idea took a back seat as I tried to get my chaotic thoughts in order.
I attempted to focus on the mission, but now that we were safe, my mind wouldn’t let me think about anything else except for what had just happened.
Without realizing that my body was moving on its own, I sat on the edge of the couch like a child about to get reprimanded by his parents.
“Tim … what the hell happened to that … that—that timeline, I guess you would call it?” I asked as my fingers absentmindedly glided over the surprisingly well-preserved cushion.
I can only surmise by the dissipation of the particles that left the linear confines of the structure that the particular timeline in question was erased from all of existence.
I thought about the colorful waves that were thrown away from the river, remembering how the fast-moving projectiles had first slowed before fading to a dull tone … and then disappearing entirely.
“How … How do you know that for sure?” I knew I was practically begging Tim to let me know he had made a mistake and that all was well, because my mind just couldn’t fathom an entire timeline being erased. All the lives that had lived on it, both past and future … just gone.
I don’t know for sure. But it would stand to reason that anything which ruptures to the point where its exploded particles fade into presumed nonexistence probably signifies the original structure no longer functions. Then again, I’m not a keyboard expert who spent an hour watching YouTube videos in search of confirmation bias that matched my already established beliefs.
“That … came out of nowhere … ?”
Oh, uh, sorry. Sometimes, the might of my sarcasm surprises even me.
There were a few seconds of silence before I willed myself to ignore where he had gone slightly off the tracks, and digested his message.
“Retnuh destroyed an entire timeline,” I said with a forced sigh in an effort to relax as I leaned back on the couch. But no matter how I mimicked the actions that preluded comfort, I just couldn’t release the tension in my heart and muscles. “He basically threw a grenade inside a house of glass. Why?”
Now, that is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Why was Retnuh, presumably, willing to destroy anything and everything in order to ensure your demise?
I thought about the question and let my mouth speak as my thoughts tried to formulate full-blown ideas at the same time. “To try and stop different variants of me?”
Hmm. I don’t think that’s quite right. But there could be something else there.
“Like what?”
If you put a metaphorical gun to my head, I would say that Retnuh is attempting to erase you from, well, any timeline.
“Any timeline …” I mouthed, realizing the endless sea of universes I had witnessed. “But he almost destroyed our timeline, right? Would he … Would he really risk his own home?”
Knowing Retnuh, I honestly have no idea.
“Hmph,” I agreed, running a hand down my face. “He is the type to burn his entire house down after seeing just one insect in the kitchen.”
Well if that isn’t the truth, Tim half chuckled before adding, Or maybe he simply didn’t anticipate how strong his attack would be?
“Do you think it, um, was emotionally charged? I mean, he did sound extra pissed off. Right? Even for Retnuh.”
You, yourself, have proven that emotions are able to push you past boundaries thought impenetrable.
I sat frozen as his words swirled around my head.
“I wonder how much of the tess-thingy he could have destroyed …”
Tesseract, Tim corrected. And if anger drives Retnuh’s power on top of his already limitless determination, then I can only imagine the entire structure is subject to his whims.
We sat without words as silence drifted among the stagnant air, absorbing how insane the Clockman, Retnuh Ordune, truly was.
“How did he even know where we were?”
Well, he didn’t know our precise location within the tesseract.
“He was damn close enough!”
Fair. Yeah, that’s fair.
“So how’d he do it, Tim?”
Andrew, Tim started in growing exasperation, I don’t even know how you do what you do, and I’m directly linked to your body … and possibly your mind, judging by my existence inside the tesseract. Without more data to analyze, I would only be offering a knee-jerk guess at this juncture.
I could feel my entire body slump where I sat, as if the life were being drained out of me.
“There’s just no stopping this guy …”
My wandering eyes caught a bookshelf which had the bottommost space occupied by vintage VHS tapes. Before my mind could even comprehend what I was looking at, my subconscious vigorously scanned the titles. Smack-dab in the middle was Alice in Wonderland.
I didn’t even realize I had shot to my feet until I heard the heavy thumping of my footsteps as I rushed to the bookcase. Dropping to my knees hard enough to rattle my teeth, I slipped my hands on either side of the cassette and all but threw the other movies to the floor.
There, sitting upright with a fine layer of dust, was my prize. Alison’s research lay within my grasp, and the answer to save my family.
Are you alright, Andrew? Tim asked softly as I just gawked at the VHS box. You are acting like a ravenous zombie who’s stumbled upon a paraplegic Mensa convention.
“I’m fine,” I replied in a barely audible monotone. Then his words registered. “Wait, what?”
Yeah, that was a bit of a stretch, wasn’t it? Hmm, I should have said a convention cohosted by the Paralympics and Mensa. Well, no, that doesn’t signify that each of the participants are both hyperintelligent—for humans—and mobility challenged.
“I …”
Because zombies crave brains? Right? And I don’t know about you, but if I were a zombie, I’d only select the grade A, primo cuts that only a juicy skull packed with dense neurons could offer. Yum!
My own brain started to formulate why adding the paraplegic portion could be easily considered risqué, if not offensive, but I just didn’t care with the VHS box in my hands. Plus, I surmised Tim was trying to manipulate my stress by saying something so odd that my racing mind would hiccup while attempting to process it.
There we go. That’s better, Tim said, confirming my suspicions. Maybe take a few deep breaths to lower your heart rate? It spiked—dangerously—when you saw the bookshelf.
“It’s here,” I whispered, holding the cassette box like Gollum cradling the One Ring.
But it won’t do you any good if you have a stroke or heart attack.
“That’s what I have you for, Tim,” I answered while gliding my fingers down the cover, leaving clean streaks in the light dust coating.
The container felt heavy, and I opened it to find it neatly packed with long, rectangular-shaped objects all comprised of stainless steel.
“What are these?” I asked, pulling one out at random and lifting it to inspect it. It was about the size of a pencil in both length and girth, with no discernible markings.
Hard drives, Tim answered. I looked at either end, expecting to see some sort of USB-type connection, but as with the rest of the casing, there was none.
These are from your somewhat distant future, Andrew, he explained, sensing my wordless question. Somewhere near when Alison graduated, a new form of Bluetooth device emerged that allowed for full self-containment.
“What does that mean? No wires?”
Precisely. The apparatus is powered by the signal from the host device.
I thought about what he was saying as I continued to roll the device over between my fingers.
“So then, you should be able to just connect to it, right?”
Yes. All I need you to do is touch the device to my housing, and I’ll be able to extract all the data fairly quickly.
“Quickly?” I asked, doing as he suggested. “Why not instantly?”
Pfft. You ever try putting a floppy disk in a Macbook?
“N-No?
Right, because the technologies are not only different architectures but vastly different ages, Tim explained as a soft chime indicated he was done.
“So I should be impressed that you are able to do this at all, is what you are saying?” I asked, carefully setting the first stick down and picking up another to repeat the process.
Damn right.
Within a few seconds, he finished downloading the data from the device, and I repeated the process by grabbing the third.
“Why can’t I just hover you over all of them and let you collect all the data at once? Isn’t that what you normally do?”
Unfortunately, Tim started with a sigh, this version of Bluetooth, though much more advanced than what you are used to, Andrew, still has its limitations. Gives and takes, if you will.
“Like what?” I asked, grabbing the next stick in the VHS box. There were about twelve left to go after this one.
