“What happened?” Cheyenne asked.
“Ana, I’m so sorry,” Jane began. “Will you give me a chance to explain, please?”
“Let's sit down,” Cheyenne said, motioning the small group into her office.
“I’m sorry I lied to everyone,” Jane began when Lucas, Cheyenne, Riddhi, and Ana had all seated themselves. “But Colonel Edwards didn’t see any other way to get this test done.”
“Colonel Edwards?” the three women said in unison.
“Yes, I’m sorry, he contacted me privately a few weeks ago because he felt that— he thought Split Horizon’s been in the spotlight too much, and he felt he’d lost control. He wanted to get it done and felt like he needed to speed us up.”
“At what cost to the rest of us?” Ana asked.
“Ana, I'm so sorry I cut you out,” Jane said. “Edwards said he couldn’t get NASA to change the timetable. It took almost the entire off-season to get everyone’s buy-in to the current plan which some said was too fast, and he couldn’t maintain the funding indefinitely. He just wanted to do the second jump and prove the nesting dolls theory would work.”
“He’s the one who let eighty-five layers of government get involved,” Riddhi said. “It was just us and a couple brains from NASA when we started.”
“We needed their funding, though,” Cheyenne said. “He didn’t have any choice but to relinquish some control in exchange for the research grants.”
“I know but—” Riddhi cut herself off. “Never mind. I want you to finish. Go ahead, Jane.”
“Ok, I had actually put together some… ideas to move things to… a new level the last couple of years, but on a separate system.”
“What system?” Cheyenne asked.
“Um, Sebbie’s little computer is super-charged,” Jane confessed. “But this year I was using my laptop, sort of behind a black wall, when I ran out of space, I moved some things over to MILO. I thought I’d hidden my side business, but everything we do gets auto-cataloged and scanned, which is why I was working privately anyway, and some things got flagged and were sent to the Colonel, and when he realized that I was, you know, hindered by the speed of bureaucracy, too, he suggested I make things, you know, go a little faster.”
“Things are scanned for a reason, Jane,” Ana said. “So we can all work together. So we can benefit from each other's expertise and caution. Because we are a team.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Ana.”
“How did you switch the capsules?” Ana asked. “We weren’t supposed to send up a nested one today.”
“She didn’t,” Lucas interjected, hanging his head. “I’m the one who loads the thing. I just used the prototype.”
Ana stared hard but said nothing.
“They look the same on the outside,” Riddhi acquiesced. “Just a 10 percent larger body. You wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking for it.”
“So you said Colonel Edwards only discovered what you were doing after you were already doing it,” Ana continued. “It wasn’t his idea, he just stumbled onto the way you were already acting like a one-man band.”
“You really took ‘semotus’ to heart,” Cheyenne said quietly, thinking how worried she’d been.
“What?” Jane said.
“Semotus. Isolated. You weren’t kidding, were you, Jane?” she added, scowling.
“Really? You’re mad at me, too?” Jane said in annoyance. “I’m so sorry for figuring this out, guys. I’m sorry for advancing science sixty years in a single day. I’m sorry for taking the amazing opportunity Colonel Edwards handed me to make a dream come true. Is that better?” Her face was red, and her hands balled into fists as she stood.
“Why is this your dream? What’s so special about a second FTL jump?” Ana asked.
“It isn’t just the second jump,” Jane said after a pause. “This gave me a chance to prove what’s behind the timing issues.”
“So?” Ana said. “Tell us.”
Jane shook her head and leaned forward into her hands with a groan. “You’ll never believe me. Lucas is married to me, and he barely believes me.”
“Believes what?” Cheyenne asked.
Jane looked at the floor but didn't say anything.
“Jane? What does Colonel Edwards think you’re doing?” Riddhi asked.
“FTL.”
“But we did that,” Ana said. “And many times over.”
“It’s time travel,” Jane said, staring at the floor.
The group chuckled mildly, but as Jane didn’t move or smile, the chuckles quickly diminished into confusion and worry.
Cheyenne reached out and gently turned Jane’s chin up to study her friend’s expression. “To be clear, you’re telling us you’re trying to invent a time machine.”
“Not trying,” Jane said. “Did it.”
“You all saw the timing issues,” Lucas said quietly. “Sit there for a second and think about it. Ana, you probably suspected it but told yourself that was an impossible explanation for what you saw.”
The room fell silent. Riddhi was rubbing the back of her shaved head as her eyes panned the office. She was the first to speak.
“Well, hey. Congratulations, Doc Brown. You know… wow.”
“Does Bonnie know?” Ana asked, looking over her shoulder.
Jane shook her head.
“Science magic,” Cheyenne mumbled.
“Magic, indeed,” said Riddhi. “So, what’s the deal? What did Edwards say in there? Good news or bad?”
“He’s relieved,” Jane said. “He took a big risk, but it paid off. This was proof of concept for Ana’s layered design. We now know this technology has the capability to be used for longer distances than we first thought. Remember, even at light speed, it would take 25,000 years to get to another galaxy, so repeatability with a single capsule is key.”
There was a pause as everyone digested the news.
“So,” Ana said, “what about your secret, you know, Back to the Future part?”
“No,” Jane said, shaking her head. “The second jump executed properly but didn’t increase the time displacement.”
“Translate please?” Cheyenne said.
“We jumped twice but travelled the same distance back time-wise,” Jane explained. “The first jump maxes out at just over nineteen seconds. I was hoping we’d double that with a second jump, triple with a third—growing linearly. For example, it would only have taken six layers for today’s capsule to arrive at that distance before it left here.”
“So, with enough layers, you were hoping…” Ana said in understanding. “I see. Legitimate time travel at 19 seconds a jump.”
“So, that’s what you see as the failure?” Ana asked. “You are making the capsule time travel, but not far enough back in time? “
“I just meant—” Jane began but Lucas interrupted.
“It doesn’t satisfy her motivation.”
“Motivation?” Cheyenne said, looking back and forth between the two Dr. Whyses.
“Jane’s been on a crazy private vendetta since June 12, 2020,” Lucas said.
“That’s awfully specific,” Riddhi said, feeling her throat tighten up.
Jane stood up and turned to face Lucas. “I told you I’d fix this.”
“No, you can’t,” Lucas said, reaching out to put his hand against her cheek. “That isn’t how life works. That isn’t how God works. Acceptance, love. You can’t science your way out of real life, Jane.”
The three women in the room with the Whyses all fell silent.
“Lucas, I am this close to getting our daughter back.”
Chapter 83
“Bonnie’s been in back-to-back calls all day,” Cheyenne said the next afternoon as she poked her head into Jane’s lab.
“That sounds fun,” Jane replied stiffly.
Cheyenne walked over and held out a cup of coffee until Jane turned and made eye contact. She appeared to relax and even half-smile, reaching out for the mug.
“Where�
�s your staff?” Cheyenne asked.
Jane’s eyes swept the empty room. “Likely distancing themselves from me until they figure out if my career’s over.”
“Is it?”
“No,” Jane said. “At least I don’t think so.”
“So are you still working?” she asked.
“Yes,” Jane said slowly. “In fact, Lucas is seeding an entire new batch of crystals today. If Edwards moves forward at the speed he promised yesterday, we won’t be working from Semotus much longer. When the season’s done, the project us getting promoted to Cape Canaveral for real, on-NASA’s-schedule space launches. He wants Split Horizon’s FTL and instantaneous travel to be NASA’s next historic achievement.”
“Wow,” Cheyenne said. “Congratulations.”
Jane didn’t look pleased about anything she said. They made small talk about the kids and weather until Jane's body language said she was ready to be alone again.
Cheyenne hesitated. “Jane?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“I thought I knew all about you,” Cheyenne said. “I thought I knew who you are. The brilliant scientist who loves to talk about Jesus. Pretty, fit, energetic. Good wife, good mom. I had you in a box.”
“But now you can see I'm falling apart, and you’re, what… impressed at my humanity?” Jane said in a defeated tone.
“I guess… pleased to see that you're a real, three-dimensional person.”
Jane smiled ruefully and tapped her fingers against the desk. “It’s weird, Cheyenne. In the evenings, when I’m just sitting with Sebbie, I’m really happy. I love my life.”
“It’s nice that you have your family here,” she said, sipping her coffee.
“It is,” Jane agreed. “But the weird thing is that these months at Semotus, they aren’t real life, you know? Real life is all the time before we came here. Real life is the eight months, the three-quarters of the year that we’re stateside. That’s life. This is just an annual four-month break where we are scientists in snow hell.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning, I don’t know… Meaning why does this feel so real? Why does this feel more real than being with my mother in New York? Than I-95 into DC? Than flashing a badge and getting admittance to the Pentagon? Why does this feel like everything?”
“Is that how you feel?” Cheyenne asked.
“I don’t know. I feel… frozen in time down here,” Jane said. “Pardon the pun.”
“Like you can’t move past losing your daughter?”
Jane turned the mug in her hands, watching the coffee make gentle black waves.
“Like every day is the same opportunity,” she said finally. Cheyenne waited for her to continue.
Jane looked up. “Did you ever see Groundhog Day?” she asked. “That’s how I feel down here. Living the same day without moving forward. I’m driven to accomplish the impossible, but am I getting any closer to what I really want? I mean, somehow instead of feeling better, or excited about my success, I’m feeling worse.”
She had tears in her eyes as she finished speaking. She put the mug down and reached for a napkin to wipe her eyes. Cheyenne sat in silence, putting her hand gently on her friend’s back until she’d had her cry. After several minutes, Jane seemed to reach the point of release and began to settle. Cheyenne waited until her friend looked up and sighed.
“You know,” Cheyenne said, “If you wanted to change courses, that would be ok.”
Jane looked over at her friend. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Quit?”
“No,” Cheyenne replied. “It isn’t always quitting to change courses.”
Jane didn’t say anything, so Cheyenne continued.
“If you wanted to drive coast to coast and left Coney Island for San Diego, but then decided to drive to Wales, Alaska, it would look really different, but you’d still have made your goal.”
“Why am I driving?” Jane asked light-heartedly, trying to deflect the serious moment.
“I think that’s what I’m asking,” Cheyenne replied, with a sense of urgency. “Why are you driving, Jane? For happiness? For faith? For success? I think… I think your goal is too rigid. You’ve decided San Diego is the only thing on the west coast.”
“You lost me.”
“Jane, your goal wasn’t to have Emily,” Cheyenne said. “Your goal was to live a happy, healthy, safe life with your family. And her death changed that, tragically and forever. But instead of seeing that San Diego was gone, and you had to head someplace else to find happy, healthy, safe—instead of aiming for Oakland or Portland, you’re insisting that San Diego is the only city on the coast.”
“Your analogy is getting long,” Jane said, her mouth tightening as she tried to shut off her emotions.
“Jane,” Cheyenne said, shaking her head. “I’m telling you that you’ve decided what happiness looks like, and you’re ignoring all the other happiness you could have along the way or any other way.”
Jane’s eyes filled with tears again. “I know,” she said softly, yanking on her ponytail. “But I think… I don’t know how to stop.”
“You have to pick a new destination.”
“Ok, we’re done with the road trip analogy, Cheyenne.”
Cheyenne smiled and reached out to hug her friend.
“What is Wales, Alaska?” Jane asked, trying to break the mood after a moment. Her eyes were red but showing signs of life.
“The westernmost city in the mainland US. You can’t drive to Hawaii.”
“Obviously. That’s a weird thing to know.”
“It’s not that different than here, actually,” Cheyenne said. “Snow. Cold. Very few people.”
“You’ve been there?”
“I have, leading a video crew for a cable TV show. Wales, Alaska: seal fishing, actual whales, and helicopters in and out.”
Cheyenne stood up, taking her cue to leave. “Anything I can do to help with whatever's next?”
“No,” Jane said, shaking her head with a hopeful smile. “ Cheyenne?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks.”
Cheyenne smiled and nodded. “You know what you’re going to do?” she asked.
“Nope. But I have options.”
“The whole coast.”
“I’d say, ‘the coast is clear’ but we’re overusing puns today.”
“Good girl,” Cheyenne chuckled as she left.
Chapter 84
Lucas sat at a table in Jane’s lab, trying to read the Colonel’s latest memo. A week had passed without Bonnie and Jane addressing their tension. Most of the staff had returned to normal life on the base, but the leadership was fractured.
Colonel Edwards had worked out a new schedule for their remaining seven weeks on the base, but he was inflated from the recent success and seemed to view the rest of the time at Semotus as tying up loose ends. It was obvious from his communications that his priority was launching a new, large-scale exploration into this new field of science at the earliest possible chance.
Jane pulled out her hair band, rearranged her brown hair, and then swept it back up in the same position. Lucas had seen her do that same motion a thousand times, but it still made him feel affection for his wife.
“Anything good?” Lucas asked, walking over and sliding into the chair next to her.
“No,” Jane said honestly, holding out the tablet. When he saw it was ideas to pursue time displacement instead of further advance Split Horizon’s mission, he frowned.
He contemplated the list for a few minutes partly to see if inspiration struck and partly to decide what to say next. Finally, he handed the tablet back, clicking the power button to shut off the screen first.
Jane’s eyes appeared to briefly protest being handed back a solid black screen, but she didn’t say anything.
“I got nothing,” Lucas said after a few minutes. “I’m empty.”
Jane set the tablet down and leaned back against the desk. “Are you mad at me?”
“I
’m not mad,” Lucas said.
“I talked to Cheyenne a few days ago,” Jane said.
“And?”
“Every time I change my mind, I feel guilty.”
Lucas waited for her to explain. She stared at the floor. Quietly, she said, “I have to keep fighting for this. I have to hold onto the pain, or what will I have left of her?”
“Emily isn’t the pain, Jane,” Lucas said gently. “Emily’s memory is the excitement and the happiness and the anticipation. I wouldn’t want to be remembered as only the pain of my death. That’s an awful legacy.”
“But how can I give up? I’ve been fighting for so long to get back to that elation, to that anticipation,” Jane confessed. “To redo all these years with smiles instead of tears… I don’t know how to just accept what happened as part of our story.”
“Let’s not oversimplify,” Lucas said. “We haven’t been living three years of tears. That’s a bit dramatic, and I’m not minimizing what happened. You know these have been amazing years. Think of how much Sebbie has changed, and everything we’ve seen. And that’s not accounting for the side business, just the honest-to-goodness Split Horizon-approved space travel experiments. Jane, you made matter go faster than light. Way faster. Our capsule makes light eat dust.”
He put his hand at knee level and said, “It’s like Sir Isaac Newton, then Albert Einstein,” he said, raising his hand to his waist, “And Dr. Jane Whyse is up there with the stars. You’re concretely the greatest scientist who’s ever lived.”
Jane stared into the corner.
“Can you honestly say when you think of the last three years that you think more about crying and missing our daughter than you do about living life with me and Sebbie? Time with family? Friends? Church?”
A silent tear made a shiny line on Jane’s cheek.
“I love our life, Lucas, really I do,” she said. “Is this… I don’t know. I just—Lucas, what kind of parent am I if I’m willing to give up when I’m so close?”
She asked the question in a hopeful way, seemingly seeking a way out rather than baiting him for a fight.
“Maybe it makes you a parent like King David.”
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