Nexus of Time

by Mark Riverstone

  Walter then activates a video recording application on the computer, turns on the desk microphone, adjusts the camera to face himself, and takes a deep breath to compose his thoughts.

  "This video is for Captain Nemolopolus. Attached are equations, diagrams, and a written proposal for a scientific undertaking which is not only significant, but essential. I believe that the final confrontation with the Greys has begun, and we are doomed to fail. Humanity has neither sufficient force to overwhelm such a powerful foe, nor the weaponry to maintain a viable defense. I know you have tricks up your sleeve to hold your own, but you don't have enough to save humanity, and I fear that is what may come. The Barge has the most advanced research on the planet, and if an assault starts, is the only place that can continue to thrive under such circumstances.

  "What I propose here and in the included files is a way for us to create an evolving time loop. The purpose is to accelerate our technology and technological advancements. Sending matter back in time is problematic. The journey results in recomposed matter of a limited life span and compromised functionality. One issue being any matter from the future already exists in the past, and therefore only the information and data comprising the object gets sent back. The object recomposes in the past from stray particle matter upon exit. The other issue is that none of the artifact or specimens we recovered in the past that traveled time were alive or functioning soon after recovery. This could be from the crash impact, but also a result of generational degradation from being a copy of one's original material self.

  "Therefore, if we send data and information into the past without matter, the future can become part of the past without conflicting physical or energy laws. Theories state that though our universe is a closed system of matter and energy, but there are no limits on the amount of information and data that can exist in a universe. Data is one dimensional and takes up no space. Extending that logic to an evolving time loop, adding information into any time will not disbalance the universe or create any anomalies.

  "The research and invention I propose is a data receiver with crystal memory and a transmitter that sends data through time to said receiver. This receiver will create an electromagnetic-gravitational rift surrounded by plates of fused quartz. The quartz will collect and store data in 5D by encoding the information into its nanostructures from a laser sent through the rift by our future selves, as in you and I, the Barge.

  "I cannot yet tell you if we need to build the transmitter or receiver first. If this moment is happening for the first time, you and I in this timeline are the first to conceive this idea, then we will first need to build the transmitter. However, if we are in one of the successive evolving time loops, then the receiver will need built first to receive information from the previous loop. There is a way to determine if we will start the first loop or are within successive loops. I need you to seek that information out.

  "You must go find the signal we will leave for ourselves. If this is not the first loop, the moment future me builds the transmitter, I will send a signal back to myself in this time to let me know the transmitter works and we need to build the receiver. Since the receiver is not built yet, I imagine sending something in the past before now, even decades earlier to ensure when this moment arrived, the signal is waiting for us. That signal is likely a barrage of high alpha and weak gamma radiation, and I'd leave it near the location where we need to build the receiver.

  "A rock formation could hold the radiation. At an undisturbed remove location; the North Pole under the ice. The Fram Basin makes sense. I want you to start your search at the exact North Pole point and move along the Fram Basin floor toward Alaska, because I would select a US landmass to direct us. Somewhere on the underwater ridge that edges the basin, you will find the radiation signature.

  "If you do not find the radiation signature, then we are the ones to initiate the time loop, and we must begin creation of the transmitter immediately. It also means you have not yet agreed to help me. You may be tempted to dismiss this theory and deny my request, but if I'm right and you don't help, we won't get a second chance, and our history ends. If you find the signature, then it shows future 'you' agreed to help me, and I'll be awaiting your pickup.

  "Whether we build the transmitter or receiver, we will accelerate discoveries and compress time. By sending or receiving completed research on tested model blueprints, conceptualized theories and actualized ideas, years of research from an ever-compressing future will occur in only a matter of weeks or months in present time. Communicating mistakes and failures that we should not undertake or ideas that we should not pursue will be included.

  "The only limitation is any information sent to the past must be prior to a time loop reaching its nexus point, what I refer to as the nexus of time. That is the point where a timeline breaks free of its loop to the past and continues on a trajectory based on the occurrences of the most recent loop. For example, if the transmitter is destroyed, rebuilding the transmitter and sending messages back won't connect to the old loop which ended, but instead create a new loop that included the destruction of the old transmitter, forcing the new transmitter to be built; events which the new loop depends upon and setting a new nexus of time. Therefore, the only way to advance future research without being locked into future events is to complete research and send messages before the nexus point.

  "Transferring information from future to past will be as follows: picosecond or femtosecond bursts of a laser radiation sent by the future transmitter into a small dimensional rift connecting to a past dimensional rift created by the receiver. The transmitter and receiver are mounted no farther apart than the space needed to create the rift between them. The heads of the transmitter and receiver will rotate so the lasers fire in the opposite direction the Earth is revolving around the sun. Laser radiation bursts passing through the rift will arrange the quartz structure inside the receiver, storing the data in five dimensions. This process will allow terabytes of memory to pass through the rift in seconds. Simple.

  "When you pick me up here, I will bring my current blueprints for a telepathic knowledge implant headset Burt and I developed based on reverse engineering a Grey communication cube. It mimics the Grey's telepathy technology and implants knowledge into the brain through the eye and ear receptors. We need to test it on highly educated humans. It has only been used on Committee agents sent 0n deadly missions, who either died before completing training or didn't return from said missions. No empirical evidence exists on how long the implanted information is retained or if any long-term effects occur, since all subjects are deceased. If we test the implant device to work without side effects, the knowledge from the future can be imprinted into a scientist's brains as soon as it arrives.

  "Ask Sandy and your other scientists to review the diagrams and equations included. I understand this proposal I'm making is radical, but necessary. You and the Barge always avoid politics and wars, but I believe as of a couple days ago, you can no longer be on the sideline of world affairs. I fear if you don't back me on this and join the effort against the Greys, there will not be a world to avoid anymore."

  Walter stops the recording, labels it 'See me' and puts it inside a folder with the encrypted compressed file. He titles the folder 'Nexus of Time'.

  He then opens an encrypted message app. In the app is a message sent over a month ago from someone named Nemo with a cute little fish avatar. The message reads. "You won the last one. Again. Ready for a new game? Make your opening move."

  Walter opens a response. His messenger name is Wal-Tr, and a cute little robot with camera eyes is his avatar. Walter types in the space '1.f3' and hits send. Leaning back in his chair, he sighs and stares at the ceiling, not moving for a couple minutes.

  He then looks around at his doodles on the walls and door. Going over to a small cabinet, he pulls out a handful of paper towels and a bottle of spray cleaner. While reviewing the writing on the walls, he sprays it with cleaner and wipes his work away.

&nbs
p; In his office at the bunker, work was on display for weeks or months for him to make corrections and additions, or ponder its relevance. But Walter knows this is not only his solution to compete with the Greys, it is also a resignation to the Committee, the organization he worked loyally with for decades. He cannot let anyone see this work. The whole situation makes Walter uncomfortable. Something about keeping secrets from the secret organization makes Walter feel isolated from everything. After wiping the walls clean, he moves to buff the markings off the door. Once clean, Walter pitches the paper towels, puts away the cleaner, and moves back to his desk chair.

  A voice comes from his computer.

  "Walter? Hello..."

  Startled, Walter sees Captain Nemolopolus on his computer replacing the background. "Jeez, Nemolopolus, you scared the hell out of me."

  "Me? When I saw your opening move for a chess game was pawn to f3, I figured someone had a gun to your head. The best player I know making the worst opening move. So, what is the matter? What is going on?"

  "I need your help."

  "I'll always help you if I can."

  "This isn't if-you-can type of help. This is I'm-pulling-the-favor-you-owe-me-from-twenty-years-ago help. I'm ready to leave the Committee and join you. I need you and one hundred percent of your resources behind me."

  "Oh...well. Maybe you should tell me what is going on before I agree. Granted, I always want you on my team, and owe you a favor. But asking for all my resources seems extreme even for you."

  "Did you get Nix's warning about the Greys finding you to retrieve some items?"

  "I did. They came. We handled them."

  "Get back to Nix and notify him the Greys didn't overrun you. The Barge were the only facility to survive the encounter. We lost four bunkers, including Grey Valley."

  "Sorry to hear that. Grey Valley was your home, of sorts."

  "It was."

  "Regarding your request...can you at least give me a breakdown as why."

  "It's about time, Captain. It started when we took out a deep-sea Grey colony in the Pacific with a nuke days ago. They had a few ships escape before the blast, which we sabotaged. Their electromagnetic cloaks surged, creating a gravity well around the ships, sending them through a dimensional rift into the past. Those ships crashed in places, 1947 Roswell being one, which we recovered and stored in bunkers. When the Greys went looking for those ships a couple days ago, they tracked the skin spawn micro-transmitter chips and the Zeus Boxes to the bunkers, and found humans had recovered them. I am certain they figured out we destroyed the base, and because we recovered their ships before them, they also realized we had something to do with the escaping ship's disappearance. I believe their retaliation against us, humans, will be swift and devastating."

  The conversation lulls before Nemolopolus responds.

  "Thank you for filling in the blanks. I got Nix's early warning and waited for the Greys to make their visit. I laid out the Grey craft frame you gave me decades ago as a decoy, getting them to stop and look. We disabled their craft and took it. I extracted a little information from this new ship. One of my crew has learned to read and speak Grey language..."

  "...What?...how did you learn..."

  "I'll tell you if you come aboard, but we don't know Grey per se. Only one member of my crew, for a lack of a better explanation, got it into his head. But the information he extracted told us why they were searching. They were trying to find a main transport ship. Apparently, the Greys had created a 'breeder' race of gendered Greys that were fertile and meant to begin the Grey repopulation. The first of the breeders were on that main transport ship. If humans destroyed the breeders, they will retaliate, as you say."

  "And that is why you need to retrieve me and commit to my research."

  "You still haven't told me what the research is."

  "A one directional fifth-dimensional rift, mapped to a coordinate system that uses the folded hypersurface of constant time. There will be a transmitter on the future side of the rift, and a receiver on the past side. Through the rift, we will send information and data to ourselves in the past, sending our future discoveries back to ourselves, eliminating research and fabrication time. Each time we send information back to ourselves, we remove the time it took us to do the research and testing from our timeline. This means we go straight from idea creation to finished research and invention blueprints. All we need to do is come up with a theory or tech in the present and sent it back in time."

  "That is ahh...pretty damn radical and conceptual, Walter. I don't see how we make it practical."

  "I sketched out a prototype with equations I am ready to transmit to you for your scientists to review."

  "Let me see if I understand. You want to join the Barge. I dedicate my resources and crew to help you build an information transmitting time machine that can create a mini wormhole into the fifth dimension. When we do, data from future 'you' will be arriving."

  "Correct, because our future selves will know the exact date and time the receiver was complete, including Earth's coordinates and trajectory within our galaxy. Each time we circle the time loop, we will compress months of research into days, years into weeks, and if lucky, discover the technology to fight against the Greys and stop them from destroying humanity."

  "It is a radical and intriguing proposition. But I see two problems. One: we build your receiver or transmitter, turn it on, and it doesn't work, wasting my time and resources. Two: The Greys catch onto us and prevent us from completing future transmissions, as a result preventing us from continuing time loops."

  "If we fail, we fail. But unless you have a better idea for opposing the Greys, what is our choice? Nemolopolus, I'm sending instructions on where to look for a radiation marker. A sign sent from future 'me'. If the marker exists, you already agreed to help me in futures past, we are not the first passage through the loop, and proves we succeed to compress time and should continue. The only decision for you is if there is no signature. Then, you need to decide if you willing to give my plan a try. Right?"

  "I...I don't know. That's even heady for me. What I know is when I think you made a wrong move in chess, you win."

  "Correct," snaps Walter. Nemolopolus laughs.

  "This is so absurd; I'm almost tempted to say yes to you right now."

  "Go look for the radiation signature. It will prove what I am saying."

  The captain's laughing slows.

  "Very well. Let's get this silliness over with."

  "I'll send you an encrypted folder of my equations, sketches and proposal through our usual channel. You can review them while following my instructions on locating the radiation signature. Once you find it, come back and get me."

  "And if I don't find it?"

  "Please maintain faith in me, pick me up, and let's be the first timeline to help other timelines succeed."

  Nemolopolus gives in.

  "Ok...send me your work, and I'll tell Sandy, Igor and Ying review your materials while I look for your haystack needle. It will take me a few weeks. I'm currently in the Southern Ocean near the New Zealand longitude finishing a research arrangement. As soon as I'm done here, I'll head toward the Arctic. If it's there, you already know the outcome, so I guess there is nothing more to say."

  "See you soon, Captain."

  "Oh, Walter, there is one more thing. If we come to get you. I want Dr. Black to come, too."

  "I am not sure if that is possible. She is here working with Nix. She may not want to come."

  "Our Grey bio specialist became unavailable to perform our biophysical operations. She is the only one with the skills we desire who knows anything about the Greys. We need her genetic abilities right away. And if this goes as you imagine, we must have everyone necessary with us on the Barge. There will be no way for us to advance research against the Greys without a Grey bio specialist."

  "I don't know what I can do. If you get a chance, contact her and make her aware you want to recruit her. She might agree without try
ing to force her."

  "Very well. But we'll need her here, whether she comes willingly or not. That's my part of the deal. I am off to find a message from the future. Nemolopolus out."

  Nemolopolus' image disappears from the computer, the background returning. Walter stands with nervous energy and paces in his office.

  Folds of Reality

  Chapter 13

  Many Times, Many Places, Many Locations.

  Dr. Black drives a black Mustang Cobra at breakneck speeds along an abandoned country road. The brake pads glow orange as she takes a sharp tree-lined bend. When she comes out of the turn, the landscape changes into a dusty burnt brown scrub grass desert. She drives along the abandoned desert highway, racing up and over a large mound. While cresting the mound, the landscape changes into a mountain peak. The car glides along the winding mountain road, until the landscape transitions into an overgrown grassland.

  Dr. Black pushes the pedal to the floor.

  While racing along the speed-blurred landscape, the passenger door opens and Tomas Seventeen, alive and looking as he did before Dr. Black surgically altered him into a skin spawn spy. As the landscape races by, he sits in the passenger seat and closes the door.

  "Mind if I come along for the ride?" asks Tomas.

  "I want you to come, but are you ready for who I am? My passengers get hurt. My track record is not good."

  Tomas smiles looking affectionately at her, "Track record, I like that. Funny. Cause you are driving fast and track records happen on a race track." He pauses as she returns a serious glance. Tomas continues, "Are you going to wreck this car intentionally? If so, maybe you should let me drive?"