“That was a fast minute,” he said aloud when the team at Semotus was unobserved. For a room where scientists just succeeded in their experiment, the room was subdued. “I’d say about twenty seconds short.”
Everyone kept their eyes on the screen, ignoring his comment. Ana fidgeted and opened her mouth twice, but said nothing. Members of the team gathered around the monitors as the satellite sent pictures, showing the capsule arriving in a burst of blue light.
Jane Whyse pushed back her chair and walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Bonnie asked her.
“To keep working,” Jane said. “We caught it exactly as we’d hoped. MILO can send the data to my lab. I want to keep working on the nesting capsules now that this is done.”
“And?” she said in a lowered voice.
“And what?” Jane asked.
“Maybe you want to talk to him, then,” Bonnie said, sticking her chin in Chandler’s direction.
“Look, Mr. Smith,” Jane said, walking over, “We appreciate you being here. But the experimental nature of our project dictates that we will not always hit a home run. Yes, we were off in our timing. Again. But the truth is that the experiment still had a positive outcome, despite some discrepancies. The capsule was successfully captured after a flight at confirmed FTL speeds.”
“I’m impressed that you can hide what you’re doing,” Chandler said, probing for a reaction. Jane’s cheeks turned red, and the reporter’s trained eye noticed that her husband shifted in his chair in the background even though Chandler didn’t break eye contact with Jane.
“Recording our inmost thoughts for science posterity, and you think we’ve been hiding things?” Jane said in a slightly squeaky voice. “Now, if you’d like, we can talk about one of our biggest challenges. The deceleration was actually one of Split Horizon’s biggest issues to overcome. A talented team, including the other Dr. Chapman—Rich—and an engineer named Trevor Fox worked with Dr. Bidell and her team to master that puzzle.”
Chandler didn’t lift his pen and let silence stand.
“So, I know the exact speed of radio waves,” he said after a moment, circling back to the previous discussion, “but can you tell me the exact position of the catch?”
“Five hundred and—” Ana started but Jane interrupted her.
“I can send it to you,” Jane said. “I mean, we have to take into account the exact position of the earth’s rotation at the moment of launch to get a precise number.”
“MILO can’t give you that right now?” Chandler asked.
“I’ll send it over, Mr. Smith, I promise,” Jane said. She tried to disappear, but Chandler followed her.
“Look, Dr. Whyse,” he said in the hallway. “I’m not your enemy. I’m not saying anything’s wrong. I just want a thorough explanation so I can present your project’s, you know, success, to the public clearly.”
Jane tapped a few buttons on the panel on the wall. “MILO,” she said, “Please pull up a visual of the exact route the capsule took, from Semotus to the catch.”
Chandler watched as the computer plotted a precise course.
“Please show the average speed at four locations along the route,” she said. MILO calculated the numbers and put them in place.
“Now, please show the response time on the confirmation.”
After a moment, a direct line appeared from the graphic of the catch in space to Semotus Base on the bottom of the earth.
“You see here?” Jane said, zooming in on their location. “We were facing in the best possible direction when the signal came in.”
“So twenty seconds worth of ‘best possible direction’? The earth moved that far during those five minutes? Come on, we’re at the bottom down here, barely moving, and even at the equator it isn’t that much.”
He trailed off, assuming she would offer an explanation. Jane didn't say anything.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I just... What you’re saying isn't plausible from my perspective.”
Jane smiled. “If you’re looking for a scandal, I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Smith. You were in the room. Do you think we’re faking it? The moon landing, too?”
“No, I don’t think you’re faking it,” Chandler said. “If you were faking it, the numbers would add up perfectly. No one builds a cover-up with loose ends to question.”
“So what is it that you think? This is a cover-up? For what?”
“Not the data, but the actual events,” Chandler said. “I think you just threw an orange into space and caught spaghetti, but y'all are acting like ‘we tried that.’ I think you don’t know how to even understand, let alone control, all the variables in your experiment and things are occurring that you can’t explain.”
Jane put her hands on her hips but said nothing.
“Maybe you’re compromising safety, maybe not,” he continued. “Maybe you’re compromising project goals. Maybe you’re wasting billions of dollars, I don’t know. What I do know is that you started out four years ago with a ridiculous battle plan for this Split Horizon thing, and as you met goals, you proceeded down a list of steps that was basically imaginary nonsense you made up to get a project approved. Space catches? Who are you kidding? I think you’re a literal million miles in over your head—pardon the pun—and they’ve thrown so much money at you that you’re still moving ahead, even when you’re inexplicably off by twenty seconds. I mean, what do you think you’re doing, time travelling? Come on, Dr. Whyse. You have a huge hole in your project. That other physicist knows it, everyone in there probably knows it, and you just won’t admit it.”
Chapter 79
CONFIDENTIAL Personal Dictation: Jane Whyse
Recorded on green laptop
I know this is my fault, but I don’t know what to do about it. All my energy has been going in one direction, and everything else is fading away. If Sebbie weren’t here, I know I would lose my mind. Lucas has been hanging around my lab all day. I know he wants to talk about it.
Me.
The fact that I’m inventing time travel.
My lack of sanity, too, probably.
Will this ever feel better? Is this the only way? Some days, I’m great. And then the guilt crushes me. How can I be ok without her? What kind of mother am I, anyway? That I could smile and laugh when my daughter is dead. Three and a half years later, though. I can’t decide if I’m making progress or slowly losing touch with reality.
I know I can do it now. It’s less theory and more real each time.
When Lucas and I first wanted to come down here, we had to decide if the experience was worth it for Sebbie. Has it been? I think so. He loves it here. But now, what am I deciding? What am I weighing? Last time, it was my dream versus four months of isolation for him, but a great life experience and all that.
Now, what is it? A huge scientific discovery but with a lot of ramifications I haven’t thought of and probably some bad ones, but Emily will be here, right? What’s that old ethics experiment they make you do? Let five people tied to train tracks die or divert the train and kill just one. So inaction or action, someone gets hurt but someone is saved. So what’s the right answer?
Screw it.
If You hadn’t let her die, I wouldn’t even have to decide. You know, I’m not the One who failed here. You promised to be loving. You say You are love. And yet, what is that? What is the love where my daughter dies, and I hold her little body? What is love where I have to move on but I feel guilty for moving on and I don't know what to do?
I have to find a way to do this. Don’t I? Yes, because otherwise I’d be abandoning her.
Right?
Is that right?
Normal mothers who lose a kid don't think like this. They just keep going. They might think 'I wish I could change this,' but they don't feel like changing it's an actual possibility. I think my job is a curse.
I don't know how to let this go.
But You gave me this mind, right? You made me th
is way. You created me how You wanted me, right? You don't make mistakes? If her death wasn't a mistake then me trying to fix it isn't, either, right?
Holy cow.
I am definitely crazy, in here arguing by myself at midnight. I just feel consumed. I can't shake this idea that I could bring her back. This 'if only.' It haunts me. All we would have had to do was deliver her a few days earlier. Would it have been that hard to find a doctor to do so? No, especially because if I’d have known what was coming I would have gone nuts enough to make any doctor want to C-section me.
So, if only someone could tell me that then.
Seems easy enough.
But then I get into all this weird emotional stuff and spiritual stuff where I wonder what happens to this me, and this Sebbie, and this Lucas or like is it proof that I failed because this happened, like if it worked, wouldn’t life just have continued and I’d be in New York with a little girl waiting for Seb to get off the bus?
Did I already fail?
Or do I still have to try?
How do I know unless I try? But will the failing hurt more? Or what if I succeed? I don’t know.
I’m a scientist and I’ve never gotten less confident as more things work according to my hypothesis. Every time it works, I worry more instead of less. Every step closer, I question it more deeply. More philosophically. More spiritually.
But You failed me, right? You failed Your promise. You left me. You forsook me.
But here I am, still talking to You. I don’t get this. I don’t understand myself. Why do I still know down to my toes that You are real? Why can’t I just be a scientist like everybody else who thinks that what I see is all there is?
Chapter 80
“MILO, show me the monitor in Sebbie’s room, please,” Lucas said a few nights later. He smiled as he watched his son sleep, breathing rhythmically in and out.
“Where’s Jane?” he asked.
“Dr. Whyse is in her lab,” the wall panel replied.
“Ok, thanks.”
Lucas walked down the hallway. The Dome was quiet in the evening. There were a good dozen people still working, but their group wasn’t known for nightlife. Sometimes when Hal, Sim, and Peter played cards, others joined in. That was as lively as Semotus usually got.
Lucas hesitated at the corner before Jane’s door.
“MILO,” he asked. “Is anyone else in the lab with Jane?”
“No,” came the reply.
Lucas already knew what he’d see when he opened the door. Jane would be at the desk in the corner, with her illegal, private laptop in front of her. Her hair would be frizzed from adjusting her ponytail dozens of times, up and down, tighter and tighter. There would be a mug of cold coffee, forgotten on the corner. Sebbie’s monitor would be pulled up on another screen nearby.
He reached for the doorknob, then dropped his hand. Leaning against, the wall, he slid down until he was sitting on the ground. Leaning forward, he put his head into his hands and prayed.
I’ve never felt so lost, he spoke in his mind. I don’t know how to lead us. We’re so far outside anything we prepared for… Do other people face challenges like this? I don’t know how to possibly decide what’s right, what’s best, what’s Your plan. Jane and I always knew where we were heading together and what lay on the other side. Now I feel like we’re on different paths that barely wind near each other. And we still can’t see what’s ahead! How can we still be lost? Where are You? Why aren’t You helping her? Why are You leaving me alone?
Lucas rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. His mouth felt dry. He leaned his head back against the wall, the coolness soothing his anxiety.
I know You’re here. I know You’re listening, or I wouldn’t still be talking. Jane’s right about that much. You’re too real to ever pretend otherwise. I just wish I could hear You. I wish You would direct me. I wish You would point me toward what to do.
I can’t let her do this. I can’t let her finish this. I feel it, through and through. This is not the right path to pursue. We need to accept and find peace. Grow. Not move on but move forward. I can’t do that for her.
Lucas stayed in his position, leaning against the wall until he caught his head snapping forward. He hadn’t expected to drift off, but it was awfully late. He willed himself to find the courage to face his wife.
Turning the knob and stepping inside, Lucas smiled when he saw Jane exactly as he’d expected.
“Hi, babe!” she said. “I was just gonna make some coffee. Want a hot cup?”
He nodded.
“You look sleepy,” she said.
“You should look sleepy, too,” he replied, gesturing in the direction of the clock on the wall. “It’s almost 11, Jane.”
“It’s decaf,” she said. “Are you coming to summon me to bed?”
“No, just checking what you’re up to.”
“Running some simulations on Rich’s latest designs for the de-layering of the capsules.”
“We’re not doing that this time, are we? I thought that wasn’t scheduled until—oh, wait...”
He looked at her for a while, searching for answers on her face. Finally he continued, “You are doing it, right? They just don’t know it. Jane! How are you going to explain that 'mistake'?”
Jane didn’t make eye contact.
“Hun, come on. You already have that reporter all suspicious, and now you’re going to have the capsule misfire and launch a second jump that tests Ana's nesting doll theory? What if it fails?”
“I won’t fail,” she replied without looking up.
Lucas shook his head. He could feel himself getting frustrated and knew that wasn’t the way to have a fair discussion.
“Jane,” he said, calming his voice and relaxing his posture. “I think you’re taking a lot of risks. With Split Horizon, I mean. This is a lot of people’s life work. Not to mention an enormous government investment.”
“No one will even care that I went out of order if it works.”
“You’re not an engineer. You’re not a metallurgist,” Lucas said. “What if there’s something you haven’t thought of? There’s a lot you can’t imagine.”
“Maybe the problem is how much everyone else can’t imagine,” Jane said. “I’m the only one still pushing the envelope to imagine something new here.”
“Jane, this was all new four years ago. You’re acting now like achieving FTL is nothing. We weren’t even sure we could do it!”
“Well, we did, Lu!” she said. “Congratulations. Now, let’s do something bigger, better, and with much greater consequences for mankind.”
“Jane, we both know you aren’t doing this for mankind. You’re doing this for Emily.”
Jane’s eyes narrowed. “Then why, Lucas Whyse, are you of all people trying to stop me?”
Her words seemed to echo in the quiet room.
Lucas dropped his shoulders and sat in the chair next to his wife. Reaching out, he took her hands off the keyboard where they’d been stalled and held them in both of his own. He waited until she finally turned her eyes to his.
“Jane,” he said, “I don’t believe time travel will solve anything. I’ve tried to explain this to you before. Even if it works, say we deliver a healthy baby girl, what’s to stop us from getting into a fatal car accident leaving the hospital?”
“What is this?” Jane snipped, “Final Destination 17? That’s how you view God? Like He's marked her for death?”
“Oh, really? Now you bring God into it?” Lucas said, but instantly regretted his outburst. He hissed air out his teeth. “I’m sorry, Jane, I’m really trying not to be short here. I want to talk to you about this. Please, talk with me.”
Jane pulled her hands away and crossed her arms over her chest but at least didn’t walk away.
She looked at him with raised, expectant eyebrows, saying, “I just don’t think you can fairly say that the only way for God’s plan to be worked out is for her to die.”
“I don’t want to s
ay that, Jane,” he replied, “but that’s what happened. It was awful. It’s still awful. But we’ve lived with it for three years.”
“If Sebbie was falling into the deep end of a pool, wouldn’t you reach out to catch him?” she asked.
“Oh, Jane, of course,” Lucas said. “You know I would. But you’re equating two things that aren’t the same. You are trying to remove the sovereignty of God. You aren’t saying ‘let’s save her,’ you’re saying ‘let’s save us.’”
“How dare you make this sound selfish!” Jane said, standing up to pace the floor.
After a moment, Lucas gently continued. “Isn’t it selfish? I mean, in your heart, where do you believe Emily is? Where is she, Jane?”
“You want me to say she’s with God. At peace.”
“And isn’t she?” he asked. “Because that’s what I believe.”
“Lucas! Stop trying to talk me into a corner! I have to do this! I can’t give up on her!”
“It isn’t giving up, Jane,” Lucas said, fighting for control of his emotions. “I know people say it to sound trite, but where she is is infinitely better off than where we are. Even if God allowed you to somehow bring her back, wouldn’t it be to make our lives better, not hers?”
“So being with me, having me as her mother would be just so terrible?” Jane asked. “God killed her to save her from that? From this life?” Her anger was evaporating into desperation as she continued to pace.
“No,” Lucas replied. “And I know you don’t believe that. I know you don’t believe God killed her.”
“Is there really a difference between killing someone and allowing someone to die when you have the power to stop it? Is there? How is that different?”
“Jane,” Lucas said. “I know it hurts. I don’t have all the answers. I’m sorry, and I love you.” She stopped pacing but faced the wall so he couldn’t see her face. He waited a moment, then dropped his face into his palms and prayed.
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