by Deen Ferrell
“Our doorway here in Bermuda, for example is built on a small, stationary hole, which allows it to bridge to an enormous, stable hole in ocean depths not far from this island. The Absconditus may well have been tuned to that same large hole.”
“What is skimming?”
“We haven’t time today to go into detail. Suffice it to say that we have almost a hundred doorways worldwide, and they are all connected. The gateway at the top of the Certus Grove building alone is tied to a dozen different doorways. It will eventually be tied by way of a small, stable hole, to a doorway at Antonio’s Corner Barber. A very simplistic explanation is that we use the magnetic charge of stable holes to slingshot matter around. I know that is not a completely satisfactory explanation, but it will have to do.”
Willoughby had finished the oatmeal. He tasted and then devoured the cup of fruit on his tray. “You still haven’t explained the construction of the Absconditus. Why was it built more like a war ship than an exploration vessel?”
“It wasn’t. Your error is in misunderstanding the true mission of the Absconditus. The ship was built for arctic excavation. The lasers are to cut a path through the ice. The titanium hull is to keep ice from closing in and crushing the ship. The nuclear generator is to power the ship when arctic winds are too harsh for sails.”
“Why arctic exploration?”
“Willoughby, we are a clandestine organization. We disseminate information to the members of the organization on a need-to-know only basis.”
Willoughby narrowed his eyes. “I just survived two attempts on my life. At least 24 people have died and I have friends who are still unaccounted for. I would say that makes me ‘need to know.’”
H.S. turned, his shrewd gaze bearing down on Willoughby. “Okay. Hidden under the ice less than thirty miles from the pole, is one of the largest and most unusual stationary holes we’ve ever uncovered. Your mission to France was, in an indirect way, designed to prepare you for the much larger mission of accessing this hole. We call it a prime hole.”
“A prime hole?”
“Yes. We believe that it’s one of the world’s core holes—a hole tied to the heart of mother earth. We have long theorized that prime holes anchor a planet’s timeline. Due to their strength and constancy, we also believe that these holes can connect us to holes in the distant reaches of our galaxy, possibly even our universe. We believe it might be possible to use this hole to skim through the galaxy in much the same way as we skim between spaces here on earth.”
“Why is this hole so important?”
“We are operating somewhat in the dark right now. Our predecessors long planned for the day when we would find the theoretical hole. They collected data for centuries to help us locate, contain, and learn to control such an extraordinary resource. But the data has been lost, which brings us to our second challenge, and to the number string I asked you about.”
Willoughby took a nibble of his toast, listening intently.
H.S. pursed his lips. “To fully understand what I am going to tell you, Willoughby, we need to go back about twelve years.” He paused, looking back over the railing. A pair of gulls had seemed to notice him eating and swooped over to investigate. They lighted several feet away from the table. H.S. shooed them away, and then walked over and seated himself at the table. He leaned forward, clasping his hands together.
“When I became Managing Director of Observations, Inc., I was entrusted with the data we had collected on the prime hole. The information was deemed so sensitive that I was compelled to wear it on my physical person at all times. It was my job to see that it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. The data was encoded into a unique molecular computer, one that is completely flat. I wore it around my neck, beneath my shirt. Shortly after you turned three years old, this computer was stolen from me. Time as we know it now stands at risk. What happened on the Absconditus is only a shadow of what may happen if someone is able to learn how to use that hole before we can properly safeguard it.”
“There was a girl on the ship who helped us escape. I knew her from school. I think she was sent there to spy on me. She said they were looking for a pendant, or something.”
“Yes. That is what the computer was disguised to look like—an ordinary pendant. It appears, however, that someone is quite aware that the pendant is more than it seems.”
“You say someone. I thought it was that group with the mark.”
H.S. sucked in a deep breath. “We thought the Cult of the Mark was all we were dealing with. Now, I don’t know. They may be working with or for someone else. Nothing we know of them would indicate an ability to skirt our defenses as easily as they did. I don’t know how much they understand. Do they know of the prime hole? Have they already found it and just need the pendant to learn how to control it? Only one thing is perfectly clear to me—we must find that pendant before they do.”
“Wait, if this cult didn’t steal the pendant, who did?”
H.S. sighed. He looked down for a moment, and then unclasped his hands. “The man who stole my pendant, Willoughby, was your father, Gustav.”
Willoughby stared at H.S., stunned. A bite of toast lay half chewed in his mouth. When he finally recovered enough to chew again and swallow, the bite felt like lead going down. “My father?”
“Yes,” H.S. nodded. He reached beneath his shirt and pulled out a gold chain. “He also stole this gold chain.” The chain had blemishes and pock marks on it and looked very old. “I want you to read something for me, Willoughby. It’s a clipping from the London Times. I was very angry at Sydney when they published it. She was careless.” He handed over the newspaper clipping. Willoughby scanned the article. It was the same article he had snatched from Antonio’s shop, with that haunting picture of Sydney in medieval dress.
“I’ve, uh, I’ve read this…Were the chain and the staff found with the skeleton?”
H.S. nodded. “We have been watching all artifacts that turned up from earlier centuries. As I explained to you earlier, time works to return things to their rightful place. We were confident your father’s remains would turn up.”
“Remains?” Willoughby felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. H.S. looked over, his face drawn.
“Your father died in another time, Willoughby. It has happened. We can’t change that. The fact that his remains were returned means time meant for it to happen this way.” He looked down at the tips of his shoes. “It’s one of the reasons that I moved up the recruitment age for you so you could go on this mission.” Willoughby opened his mouth to speak, but H.S. stopped him. “Let me explain. It’s important for you to understand how everything relates. A hidden piece of parchment was found in the staff. I shared parts of what was written on the parchment with you at the orientation meeting. Do you recall?”
Willoughby blinked. “Yeah… ‘Mathematician, beware of the Beelzebub.’ It was a letter from Nostradamus to his son, wasn’t it?”
H.S. leaned against the rail. “Yes, Willoughby—a letter signed by Nostradamus, hidden in a staff found next to human remains that, according to the dental records, belonged to your father.”
The words washed over Willoughby. For a long moment, only the sound of the waves crashing against the shore and the lonely cry of the gulls overhead penetrated the silence. He looked at his unfinished eggs-Benedict and pushed the tray away. “You’re saying that you think my father was Nostradamus, aren’t you?” he managed to croak.
H.S. considered the question. “For a time, yes… I think he may have been the Nostradamus who was a seer. Perhaps the Michel de Nostradame who was a physician, the man who disappeared when he was unable to save his own wife and child from the plague—perhaps that was the true 16th century man.”
Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Willoughby was having a hard time getting his mind around the revelation. He gulped and looked away. “I need to hear the whole story.”
H.S. breathed in. He slowly stood and walked back to the rail. He turned back toward the table, rocked forward on his feet, and clasped his hands behind his back. He had the air of a man ready to share a painful memory.
“We hired Gustav to work on a platform for us in Peru. He lived a very erratic life back then, never long in one place. He was a secretive man, haunted by demons he would not discuss. He rarely spoke of his family, and never gave an explanation for his elusive lifestyle, but all in all, he was brilliant. While he was deemed too unstable to invite into the organization, we did use his services. We tried to keep the purpose of his work unclear, but he saw through us. He guessed what we were really building.
“About a week before the project was finished, your father broke through security and headed straight for the unsecured time hole. Luckily, I happened to be there that day. One of the security guards tried to stop him. They thought they could talk to him, reason with him. But he was wild, out of his mind. He said they had found him, and he had to go.”
“Who had found him?”
“We don’t know Willoughby. Perhaps the same people who attacked the Absconditus? I got to the platform just as he was about to jump into the raw hole. I called to him. He let me come up. We spoke. He knew about my pendant somehow and wanted me to give it to him. I couldn’t do that. He grabbed for it. In the scuffle, the chain broke and it, along with the pendant, fell from my neck. Gustav snatched them just as a piece of unfinished platform gave way. He tumbled down, into the unsecured hole.
H.S. paused. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. “The pendant was always running, charging itself from my own magnetic aura much like an automatic watch charges itself by the movement of the arm wearing it. The computer was programmed to locate and map new time-hole possibilities around me, and to help me gauge the strength of these holes. It was not a passive, but an active piece of technology. It would have called attention to itself for someone able to read the ripples of time.”
H.S. peered at Willoughby as if to emphasize the possible implications of the statement.
“And?” Willoughby said, unwilling to let the man know that he well understood the implications.
H.S. shrugged. “We searched for your father, but to no avail. Our best estimations, judging from star map calculations that Dr. O’Grady helped us uncover, put his whereabouts somewhere in the 16th century. When his remains were discovered in the cave in Oban, Scotland, we meticulously searched the cave. We found the staff and the chain, but we’re certain that the molecular computer was never there. It has a residual signature we should have been able to detect. We have to find it, Willoughby.”
Biting back a hot surge of anger, Willoughby glared. “You knew I might meet my father in France. Were you planning to tell me, or just wait and see what happened?”
H.S. stared back at him, unblinking. “I don’t know. I hadn’t decided what I would do. I wasn’t even sure I would let you go through with the assignment. I wasn’t sure how this knowledge would affect you. Would it put you in more or less danger?”
Willoughby scoffed. “So, instead, you put me on a ship full of murdering cut-throats who kill everyone in sight. What a great plan! You might have told the rest of team. Of course, two of them are who knows where—lost somewhere in the corridors of time. I want out, H.S. I no longer want any part of this.”
H.S. bowed his head. He had the look of a wounded bird—a guilty, wounded bird. He looked up again, holding Willoughby’s gaze. “I did tell the team, Willoughby. They knew.”
The words hit Willoughby like a dagger. He fought to keep hot tears from coming. “Antonio, James Arthur, Sydney—they all knew?”
H.S. nodded.
Willoughby pushed away from the table. Despite the pain in his shoulder and his dizziness, he stumbled away from H.S. toward the other end of the veranda. He stood at the railing and looked out over the view that had, moments ago, seemed so warm and magical and inviting. Now, everything around him seemed suddenly plastic and cold. He brushed at his eyes. Why was he crying? Why couldn’t he better control his emotions?
Despite the fact that his father had been gone for over twelve years, he had always hoped that he would someday find him, that he would bring him back. What kind of true friend would keep something so personal from him? He knew he was reeling from his ordeal on the Absconditus and possibly still in shock, yet there was something else—a fear that maybe his friends had been right in not telling him. What if his father did masquerade as the seer Nostradamus? What if he was somehow connected with the ones that took the Absconditus? At last, he wiped an arm across his eyes and looked back toward H.S.
“Does anything besides the staff and chain connect my father with Nostradamus?”
H.S. hadn’t moved from where he leaned against the rail. “There are certainly a number of curiosities. If the seer Nostradamus was actually from 21st century America, it would explain the accuracy of his predictions.”
Willoughby sniffed, looking back. “I…I find it hard to believe. What about Nostradamus’ letters to his son? The people of that time were convinced that the seer was Michel de Nostradame.”
“Yes,” H.S. nodded. “It is possible that your father was merely befriended by the real man—that they became friends or partners somehow. It is also possible that when Michel disappeared after being unable to save his family, he disappeared for good. It was a couple of years before a man, claiming to be Michel de Nostradame, came back, and references from the period suggest he had changed in many ways during his absence.”
“So you’re saying my dad stole your computer and chain, and then traveled back in time so he could knock off a man called Nostradamus and become an infamous seer? Why?”
H.S. sighed. “I didn’t say he knocked off anyone. I do not think your father was a bad person, Willoughby. I think he was being pursued by someone. I think he found himself in a strange land and had to improvise. Perhaps he tried to nurse Michel back to health, but failed. Maybe, in an effort to communicate through the ages, he assumed the identity of Michel and began to write his predictions, his quatrains. That’s why I asked you to study the quatrains. Perhaps they were an attempt to get a message to us, a message to you. Scrawled across the back of the parchment from Nostradamus to his son was the number sequence I told you earlier. Who would know what that sequence meant but you? Perhaps the real son that letter was meant for was you.”
Willoughby considered the words. “Why did you lie to me? You told me you didn’t know where my father was, or if he was alive.”
“That’s not completely accurate. From a certain perspective, I told you the truth. The remains found in the cave are that of a man in his late seventies. Traveling in time, we might be able to find your father in his forties or fifties. If we can find him, he will be alive, just not in this time period.”
Willoughby wiped at his eyes. “Will we be able to bring him back?”
H.S. looked away. “I don’t know Willoughby. It would depend on what your father wants, on what time will allow.” H.S. moved slowly back to one of the metal table chairs and seated himself. “There’s something I need to say to you, Willoughby, but I don’t want to say it when we’re 30 feet apart.”
Willoughby looked up, tears still streaked across his cheek. H.S. motioned for him to come back to the table. After a moment’s hesitation, he did. He sat, leaning back in the wrought iron chair feeling miserable. H.S. clasped his hands again on the table.
“I made a mistake—a terrible mistake. Antonio and Sydney begged me to let them tell you, but I thought it was best to wait. I didn’t then, nor do I now, know if any of what happened with the Absconditus is related to our search for your father. Please don’t blame the others. Not even James Arthur was keen on the plan once he came to know you. But they trust me. This time, I let everyone down.”
Willoughby was trying to hide the crop of fresh tears leaking from his eyes. H
e found it hard to meet H.S.’s gaze. He, too, had held back information that could have been valuable to the team. He had meant to tell Antonio sooner, but he wasn’t sure what he had really seen, and with all that was happening as he was recruited into Observations, Inc., it didn’t seem as important. When he heard about the Petersburg break-in and realized it was important, he told Antonio, but it was too late by then. Could it have made a difference in the capture of the Absconditus? Could it have saved any of the lives lost? He found it hard to think.
“How do you know Gustav didn’t just destroy the pendant?”
“We don’t,” H.S. admitted. “But I know how the machine was built. He would have had a hard time destroying it. Besides, I think the loss of the crystal computer, and the tragedy of the Absconditus, are somehow related. Gustav clutched the chain even in death. My suspicion is that he knew it linked him to his true life, his true identity. Maybe he believed someone would figure things out someday. Maybe he thought it might be you and that you would come for him.” His words trailed off.
Willoughby sat there, staring blankly at the ocean. “So, what now? We have dangerous information at large. We have a seer who may or may not be my father, and may or may not have the computer that holds this dangerous information. We suspect that there are others after this computer, or ‘pendant.’ These others seem to have technology equal to or greater than our own.” He sat suddenly forward in the chair. “I have information, H.S., which you’re not aware of.”
H.S. gave him a curious stare. Willoughby adjusted his arm on the pillow before continuing.
“I did tell Antonio on the ship, but I don’t think he had a chance to relay the information. I think I may have seen the man who is pulling the strings. I think he’s the head of this cult who has been watching us—who was responsible for the attack on the Absconditus.”