< Russell Andrews/ALICE
Save Jake – March 9, 2013
Beware false prophets/Find an ancient you can trust
Catalysts may not create paradox
Mark and Sam may be able to help
Find Mom’s files
Quentin Steinam investments
Lex Parsimoniae
Nothing is set in stone – But please, do not change too much – Sam is the right choice
Do NOT listen to Mom
Do NOT let Mom use the stones on May 6, 2013
July 12, 2013 – Date of the bomb that was not a bomb? >
She looked back out across the street. The orange hue from the cigarette had disappeared. Was Ian the ancient she could trust, or was he the false prophet? How was Russell Andrews involved in this? Did he know about the stones? Was he a witch, too? Whatever the heck that meant. Abbey was beginning to think the witch stuff was a big red herring—a bunch of people cloaking their nefarious time travel activities under the more benign banner of witchcraft, as if they had to time travel to follow the customs of—what had Dr. Ford called it—the Guild? Not, Abbey reflected, that witchcraft on earth had a reputation for being particularly benign.
She couldn’t do this alone. She collected her iPhone and slipped out into the hall. Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling” blared from Caleb’s room and covered the sound of her knock. She could hear the TV on down in the crypt. Her parents had taken to watching it in the evenings—another sign that things were totally off the rails. Simon drew open his door a crack, blinking slightly in the brightness of the hall.
“I need your help with something,” Abbey murmured.
He nodded and pulled the door open wider to allow her to enter his room, lit only by the glow of the two giant computer monitors that occupied his desk.
She was going to do this, then.
2. The Good Side, Of Course
Abbey settled herself on the edge of Simon’s bed. His navy blue walls made the white of his computer screen seem blinding, and yet Abbey could see Simon’s eyes shift furtively back to the lines of code that occupied the monitors.
“Working on something?” she said. Her nerves added a glibness to her tone, and Simon plunked into his computer chair and flicked the buttons on the bottom of the monitors, plunging them into darkness. Only the lights from Mrs. Forrester’s shone a dull glimmer onto Simon’s duvet.
“I’m always working on something,” he replied evenly.
“I know, Si. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. What are you working on?”
She heard the air whoosh out of his nose in a snort. “I’m trying to replicate the code I saw on the computer in 2036. Stupid, I know, since the functions, like communications, and navigation, and the ship for which I would be writing the code don’t even exist. But I’m trying to build the structure. I don’t know how well it’s going, though. I thought I had it figured out when I was there, but now I’m not so sure.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Abbey paused. “Well, I guess we know you will.”
Simon snorted again, and she could make out his silhouette now. “That’s the interesting question. Do we? Was that my future, or one possible future, or just some crazy illusion? Am I writing the code now because I saw the code in the future and now think I can? Would I ever have come up with it on my own if I hadn’t seen it in the future? Is it now just a self-fulfilling prophecy?”
Abbey almost laughed. “So you’re devaluing your own creation because it was your future self that created it and gave you the idea?” But he had a point. This knowing the future, or thinking you knew the future... this thinking you had to live up to the successes of your future self, when it was in fact you who’d achieved those successes… it was a strange and entirely unnerving thing. With an oddly competitive aspect to it.
To her relief, Abbey heard a low chuckle emerge from the shadows.
“So, what brings you to my lair, as you and Caleb so fondly call it? I’m assuming you’re not proposing a trip to the stones, since we’re in lockdown. I’m not even sure if we’re allowed to be fraternizing.” There was a drollness to Simon’s manner, but he was right. If their parents caught her in here, there would be questions.
“When I went with Caleb to your future on the docks, after the men came out of the forest with the crossbows and spears and Caleb was hurt…” She paused, because she knew that Simon had been hurt too. Just less hurt. Still, they had abandoned him with Mantis. But Simon didn’t move or say anything, so she continued. “Future Caleb said he had changed his mind about changing the future. He said I had to try to… fix everything, and he told me where to find my iPhone in my future, and there was a list on my iPhone. A list of clues.”
“I see.” Simon remained motionless at this point. The strains of Maroon 5’s “One More Night” thudded through the wall from Caleb’s room.
“And I was wondering if you wanted to take a look at the list and tell me what you think.”
Silence except for Adam Levine. Simon raked his hand through his hair. “I don’t know, Ab. We were told not to get involved. Caleb’s the one that’s good at this kind of stuff. Not me. ‘Fix everything.’ That seems like a pretty tall task.”
“So you’re okay if the three of us end up living in three different universes or timelines.”
“I didn’t say that. But what if by trying to fix it, we make it worse?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then maybe we should do nothing.”
“What about Mom? Mom’s dying, Simon.” Abbey tried to keep a firm rein on her tears.
Simon’s voice dropped an octave into the fierceness of adulthood. “We don’t know that.”
“How could she have used the docks if she wasn’t?”
“Ab, we really don’t know anything about those stupid docks. Mantis and Ford could have been feeding us a whole line of crap about the camels. Who knows if they even know? Maybe only special people can use the docks. People with brown hair, or AB positive blood, or who were born under the full moon. Who knows? I just know you can’t believe a word out of either of their mouths.”
“Aren’t you even interested in looking at the list of clues?” Abbey tried to keep the snappishness out of her voice.
“I’ll look at them, I just don’t think we should necessarily act on them,” Simon shot back.
Abbey was about to press the code on her iPhone when there was a quiet rap on Simon’s window. She and Simon both leapt to their feet, and stared first at each other and then the window.
“Did you hear…?” Simon said.
The knock came again. Abbey and Simon moved toward the window. Abbey experienced the same jittery acceleration of her heart that she’d been growing used to since they’d first found the stones.
A dark figure pressed against the wall of their house, behind the rosebush that occupied the space in between Abbey’s and Simon’s windows. The streetlight threw enough light for Abbey to catch the outlines of a tan beret. Ian reached out his hand and knocked again, this time on Abbey’s window. Abbey reached out and cranked open Simon’s window.
“Shhh,” she ordered. “You could get us into serious trouble.”
“Do you mind letting me in then?” Ian said.
“That would be worse.”
“Please. I need your help.”
Before Abbey could say anything, Simon pulled the screen out of his window, cranked it open another foot, and offered his hand to Ian, who climbed carefully onto Simon’s desk and then onto the floor.
“Not a fan of lights, then?”
“Not really,” Simon said.
“Look, I’ll get right to the point. I need you to help me find Jake—tonight. Frank and Francis have staked out the playgrounds of both high schools with no luck, and this new sign-in procedure at the school offices has us stymied. Apparently there are new procedures in 2012 that mean strangers can’t get the names of students, or hang aro
und schools. Students won’t talk to us. I’m not sure what the hell happened in the last fifty years, but espionage has become far more challenging.”
“Ever heard of the Internet?” Simon asked, then turned to Abbey. “Who are Frank and Francis, and why does this guy seem to think he knows you well enough to knock on our bedroom windows?”
“We met,” Abbey said. “Today. In the juniper bushes. This is Ian. Frank and Francis are, you know, the big guys… in the Camry.”
“If Mom and Dad find out…”
Ian flapped his hands in the air to shush them. “Look folks, I appreciate that there are family politics at play here, but we urgently need some help. We need someone who can use the docks, or some very unpleasant things may be about to happen. As for this internal net thing… we didn’t even have computers back in my day, so we’re a little lost with regard to how to use it or where to find it.”
Simon’s voice crackled with anger. “Go to the library, buy some Internet time, go to a computer, click on the screen, open a browser called Safari, type Jake and Coventry without the ‘and’ into the bubble in the top right, click on the links, and figure it out.”
Ian was silent for a few seconds. “If you could just give us his address, it would really be much simpler for us.”
“We helped a lot of people out three weeks ago, and as far as I can tell, it just advanced their personal agendas while putting us in danger.”
“Yes, well, now we’re here to help you stop them.”
“It seems to me that you folks have to work this all out yourselves. Without our help.”
“Then we will all be lost.”
Simon gave a snorty laugh. “Of course! Bring out the dramatics to convince the kids who ‘must save the world’ to go on the quest. That’s how all epic fantasy novels and video games begin. The inciting incident that makes our unlikely hero take up the sword.”
“I just want an address, really,” said Ian quietly. “Look, the pair of you, and your brother, and your friend Mark, are involved in this whether you like it or not—no matter how much your parents are trying to block you out of it. You live right next to the stones and your mother uses them every morning, and what’s going to happen could affect everyone in the world.”
“She what?” Simon said, scrunching up his face. Abbey was glad Simon hadn’t known either. Then he frowned. “Unlike you, possibly, since you seem to have spent much of your life cooped up in Nowhere, we’ve seen the future. And yes, there are some challenges, but it’s not like the world was completely obliterated. We could make it worse.”
Ian winced at the mention of Nowhere. “You’re right. We don’t know how the future looks. That’s why we need your help. The stones tend to jump you approximately twenty to thirty years into your biological future. They’ll go less if you’re near the end of your potential lifespan and can’t possibly live that long. Since we spent so much time in time purgatory, twenty to thirty years in the biological future, for most of us, is the past.”
Ian paused to let this sink in. Abbey’s legs went a bit rubbery.
The stones did allow travel to the past.
Ian continued more deliberately. “But the thing about going to the past is that creating paradox is about as easy as tripping over your own shoelace, and none of us is particularly keen to go back to Nowhere. Yet there are some of those in the Guild who are probably willing to sacrifice their own lives for the greater vision, if you know what I mean, and could be convinced that they’ll be rescued from Nowhere again if they help out. And that could really screw things up—for everyone. I don’t think any of them have tried it yet. But they will, eventually.”
“I don’t know if we know quite what you mean. Is there a greater vision?” Abbey said. “Whose greater vision?”
“It’s best not to say—”
“Oh, is that kind of like ‘he who shall not be named’?” Simon sneered, cutting Ian off.
Abbey saw the outline of Ian cock his head to the side. Of course he would have no idea what Simon was talking about.
Ian continued, “Before you interrupted me, I was going to say, it’s best not to say right now. If you want me to explain the intricacies of the Witching Guild and politics, it’s going to take some time, and I really need Jake’s address tonight. I’m prepared to offer lessons in witchcraft in exchange.”
“I don’t believe any of you can do magic,” Simon said. “You just crawled in a window and are begging us for an address. If you could do magic, wouldn’t you just wave your wand and make the address appear?”
“We don’t call it magic,” Ian said in a strained voice. “At least those of us who know what we’re about don’t, and we don’t have wands.”
“Fine, then. Whatever you call it. Can any of you actually do anything the rest of us can’t?”
Ian flicked the switch on Simon’s desk, picked up a pencil, and withdrew a piece of paper from Simon’s recycling bin. When he drew a pentagram, Abbey almost gasped. Ian pushed the paper in Simon’s direction and handed him the pencil. “The problem—the one you’re currently frustrated about—think about it and draw the numbers that come to your mind in as many of the vertices as you wish.”
Simon narrowed his eyes, but nonetheless started scrawling random numbers into the corners of the pentagram. When he was finished, he placed the pencil back on the desk with a vaguely defiant look.
Ian picked up the pencil and started adding and multiplying the numbers in an order that cut three diagonals through the pentagram, but he was doing the sums and products so quickly that Abbey couldn’t quite follow. Then he started summing and multiplying the sums and products, until only one number—a nine—remained.
Ian circled it and said, “The thing you’re working on. Three isn’t going to be enough. You need nine.”
Simon blanched. “But three is the industry standard.”
“It may be, but when you’re trying to forge new ground, you may have to go in a different direction.”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about the ‘internal net.’” Simon twisted the final two words.
“I don’t. But I do know the meaning of numbers.”
“Then why can’t you do that to find Jake’s address?”
“I could, if you’d be willing to write down some numbers for me again.”
“So the numbers I write down, and the order I write them in, enable you to read my mind.”
“Not exactly. They help me to read reality, and your mind has been a conscious or subconscious observer of that reality, which is why the numbers have to come from you. Your mind was already telling you nine, but you weren’t listening to it, which is why you were stuck.”
“I don’t know Jake’s address.”
“Then simple verbal directions as to where we could find him would suffice.”
Simon and Ian stared at each other.
They were interrupted by a quick tap and the inward swing of Simon’s bedroom door. Abbey stifled a scream, but only Caleb stood on the threshold, with a quizzical look on his freckled face. He took in Ian, the open window, and the pentagram diagram on Simon’s desk in quick order, and his face clouded.
“Excluding me again, are you?”
Simon hastily moved to shut the door behind Caleb.
“No, we’re not. Abbey had just come to ask me a question, when this guy”—Simon gestured at Ian—“decided to make an appearance. I’ve never met him before. He wants Jake’s address.” Abbey flinched at Simon’s slight emphasis on the word I.
The wary look of hurt on Caleb’s face didn’t falter. Ian strode across the room with his hand outstretched. “Ian, from across the way, sixty-eight years young, on the good side, just to be clear. We could really use your help, but your brother and sister here seem to have some trust issues.”
Caleb took Ian’s hand and nodded, darting a vague glare in Abbey’s direction.
“Like I was saying to Abbey and Simon, we’re fa
cing some big problems, and we need Jake’s help. Nobody seems inclined to provide the three of you with the instructions you’re going to need to navigate this world, and I’m happy to do that—in exchange for your assistance.”
Caleb donned a charming smile. “Well, if they aren’t interested, you could come one window over, and I’m sure we could work something out.”
“Caleb, no!” Abbey said. “How do we know whether he’s on the good side or the bad side? We don’t even know if there is a good or a bad side.”
“Maybe he could demonstrate for us that he’s on the good side,” Simon said.
“What? You want me to send puffs of rainbow smoke out my fingertips, make bunnies and puppies appear, or tell you a story about the eye of Sauron? I can’t do any of that,” Ian replied.
“Well, a little more information would be helpful,” said Simon.
Ian removed his beret, raked a hand through his sandy hair, then replaced his hat. “All right, fine. Witches were the original scientists, exploring the movement of the planet, figuring out basic physics, and learning how herbs can be used to cure disease. But due to years of persecution—mostly by those who wanted to claim our findings as their own—our contributions have been discounted and largely erased from history. Now we cannot practice witchcraft in the open without being thoroughly mocked and ridiculed—or worse. So most of us have spent the last century in hiding, and we’re all a little weary of that. The world has been in the grip of the rational mindset for too long, and frankly, it’s to the detriment of everyone. All this focus on progress… we’ve given up our intuitive connections with the natural world. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details. You’ve all used the stones, and I’m guessing you’ve heard of the idea of parallel universes or timelines. Some witches who have used the stones in the last sixty years have seen a future where our customs can be practiced openly and are accepted alongside traditional science as being a legitimate approach to inquiry and ontological stance. But none of those futures have happened, and they figure that those futures exist in a parallel timeline. You following?”
A Quill Ladder Page 3