Straightening a crease from his dress pants as he processed the information, Kriegmacher asked: “So what’s your plan here? Clone everyone’s particles, and use dark matter to send our duplicate bodies across the galaxy in the twinkling of an eye? That’s mankind’s Great Escape?”
The Austrian cleared his throat and a moment of silence passed. “General, it is healthy that you are a skeptic, but this will go faster without sarcasm. To answer your question, using this spukhafte Fernwirkung we have teleported photons only, not complex structures, and only for several miles. When we do there is a ten percent degradation of material, so we are a long way off any practical human application over distance, even if we knew of a suitable planet, which we don’t, despite Hubble’s best efforts. However . . .”
The projector brought up a new image, a schematic front and side line drawing of what looked like a window.
“. . . if you entwine specially charged photons on a simple object, say a thin sheet of glass, and cause one side of it to vibrate at a different frequency of reality, it becomes part of the dimension that exists in physical form there, which is invisible and immaterial to us here. But with the glass being transparent, you can look through.”
“To where?” Kriegmacher asked, curiosity rising.
Oxford picked up the thread: “Another world, General. An overlay, in the same location as our own, physical in its own right but not connected to the events in our dimension at all.
They let that sink in.
When the General finally spoke again, he had joined the dots. “Easier than sending people to the other side of the galaxy, you want to send them nowhere, just a different version of here!”
A thought struck him. “But if Earth flew into a sun or was hit by a planet-killer asteroid, you think this other dimension wouldn’t be affected? If what you say is correct, surely any dimension of the world is tied to what happens on the physical planet itself?”
The Belgian answered curtly: “Theoretical physics is just that, General: theoretical, until put to the test. That’s where you come in. We’re assembling a team to prove the science by co-opting Fermilab in Chicago. We want to do more than just look through windows. The goal of Project Sidestep is to evaluate our colonization options, General. Since we can’t travel away, we hope to travel through.
“Surrounding this venture we need global security in our world and whatever lay beyond. That will be your contribution. The operation will be funded as a write-down from the debts various governments owe us. In effect you’ll have a blank check to cash as you need to. Your time horizon will be five years so we can commence live transfers before the winter of 2012. During 2011 we will start winding down the commercial projects and academic grants to Fermilab, nudging it more under our full control, and allowing you to operate more overtly. At the same time we will bring pressure to bear on the CERN facility in Switzerland, and cause it to go into ‘maintenance mode’ so we can avoid stretching the dimensional membranes too thin19. We’ve already been testing our luck too far in that respect. During this assignment you will retain your status and all other privileges with the U.S. Army—with a few bonuses and, of course, passage through the portal with our colonists when the time is right—all the while the Pentagon will list you on ‘special assignment’ to the U.N.”
The General understood what they were asking of him. It was just that he didn’t believe it. These people sold a good story, but he wasn’t buying. He made up his mind.
“This sounds like a fancy clambake, no doubt. But the truth is I’m an old Army mule two years away from retirement, and I’m stars and stripes through and through. I thank you for the briefing, gentlepeople, but I do believe we are done here.”
As he stood to leave, the shutter on the window panels lifted on silent treads, revealing a view to the outside through three glass panes. The dark blue sky of evening had crept up since he’d arrived on the mountain, and to the south past some mottled trees could be seen silhouettes of the twin domed silos that housed the Institute’s telescopes, bathed in a dull yellow-brown glow of security lights.
Standing in the still air of a snow-covered foreground was the blonde woman who had first greeted the General, now wearing a heavy duffle coat and white scarf against the cold. Behind her a long groove of footsteps could be seen in the white slurry. There was an audible click from inside the dark room, a slight flicker in the middle window, and the woman, her footprints in the snow and the buildings vanished as trees erupted across the field of vision.
Kriegmacher stood very still, taking in what was seeing. Snowflakes blew on a winter’s breeze through the thick copse of fir trees that pressed tightly against the glass. The light in that sole windowpane appeared as at sunset, cast with red hues.
He took a few steps sideways to look through the right-hand window, and the former scene returned of a neat frosted courtyard, manicured gardens, distant white domes under a blue sky, and Blondie. Only the middle rectangle showed the rust-hued winter wilderness.
Oxford’s voice: “You’re looking into what few have ever seen. It is literally, our planet, without us in it. And it exists right alongside us, all the time. Were we to examine the other side of the window one micron deep we would find it wet with melted snowflakes from that place, as it is quite literally facing into the physical plane there and interacting therein. By studying such droplets we know the water and air is identical to ours, and so is the pressure. We have taken portable panes to a dozen sites, and never once encountered more than flora and fauna. It appears completely unoccupied. An Eden.”
Kriegmacher sucked in a long breath, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, his eyes transfixed, mind racing. “It looks like physics just gave you a Hail Mary pass to get this working! But as you say, it’s only any good if you can do more than watch at a distance, and surely only if it really is unaffected by what happens to the planet in this dimension.”
“Moving from window to walkway will be the primary mission of your command, General,” said the Belgian. “And in doing so, you will be rendering a service not only to your country but to the survival of our species. You want those stars and stripes to keep flying? This is the surest way. There’s no greater act of patriotism, as a letter in your folio spells out for you. Read it.”
He looked down at the manila folder in his hand, and opened the cover. On top of a thin ring-bound file was a white sheet of paper headed by an eagle clutching an olive branch, arrows in its talons, and a striped shield with stars on its chest. Below the Seal of the President of the United States was a handwritten note, addressing him by name.
It spoke of founding principles, of freedom and liberty, and of the pioneering spirit that marks every great leap forward. It reflected on courage and faith being touchstones of a national legacy, and invited him to exercise faith now to believe the unbelievable, and to serve the needs of all nations whose needs were as One Nation, One World, with One Destiny.
Scratching his short grey hair, General Ari Kriegmacher tried to collect his thoughts. His gut was a reliable compass, and he knew he didn’t trust these people no matter how impressive their demonstration. He didn’t like the idea of secret societies operating on his home soil. But he followed his commander-in-chief. And he knew he’d sleep better knowing that if such an operation were to be run, it was watched over by someone who could be trusted to preserve his own country’s interests.
Someone like himself.
He told them of his acceptance and the blonde lady entered the room, shed her coat and brandished her tablet computer, motioning for him to raise his hand to its glass surface.
“Blondie, I already gave you my print,” he snapped.
“Yes you did,” she replied flatly. “And now I’ll administer the antitoxin to the film of poison you pressed your thumb against last time, just in case you refused the role. Consider it your first bonus, General.”
THAT HAD BEEN two years ago, and today like most days as his timetable grew shorter, Lt. Ge
n. Ari Kriegmacher was in a lousy mood. He angrily snorted out thick plumes of smoke from a Cuban Cohiba he was mauling between capped molars.
Complicating his smooth running of operations, logistics and security, espionage was becoming a real headache. Spies like that Russian scientist now nosing around the base. Did she think him blind? He’d been running black ops when she was still in diapers—every secret keystroke may as well have sent up a flare! He was in two minds about how to deal with her.
Publicity around a security breach in so sensitive a facility would only panic an American public already wound up way too tight since 9/11. She should be handled internally and quietly. He was sure the county authorities would sweep any action under the carpet in the interests of national security. And it would send a message to the other foreign embeds who he knew were onsite, picking their way through Fermilab’s encrypted databases for their own governments.
He’d have someone deal with it20. So much of his operation was now spent working on plausible deniability.
It was inevitable that someone, somewhere would put two and two together and throw certain ideas into the public arena. To head that day off, standard practice as taught by those funding him was to run concepts out through film and tabloid press as lightning rods to allow inquisitive minds to spend their energies away from the government domain, where such topics would dissipate as mere fictions.
But no matter how tight a lid he kept on things, there was no denying the incident logs: their experiments—both in Chicago and those in Geneva—were weakening the membranes that divided the dimensions he was chartered with opening a gateway between. Strange creatures21 were turning up in fields and fishing nets. Others were being filmed swimming free in deep oceans, creatures that scientists had only seen before in the fossil record.
No, there was no keeping a lid on it anymore, not since the soft-bellies in Washington let the Internet slip into the public domain. Websites were full of evidence, much of it more accurate than people knew. So misdirection was key.
Kriegmacher knew that if the same effort behind all the deep field telescopes and satellites sweeping the skies for signs of alien intelligence had been directed instead to look down, or rather to look sideways with the right lens as his team were doing, the public would find alien life teeming all around them.
But of course preventing that was where Kriegmacher’s team came in. The General flicked a glance at his unit’s flag in the stand next to his desk, the fabric starched for display amid several others that draped various crests, shields and keys, none of them belonging to a nation but instead to a number of prominent families and guilds. The scrolling motto of his flag stood out in yellow letters on a black background above the image of the Earth cupped in two hands:
Gens Reformo Ianua Deduco.
The Latin words that formed the mnemonic ‘GRID’ spelled out in no uncertain terms what their function was, always a reminder of the true mission they were entrusted to fulfill. However, only those who understood the planet’s fate would appreciate the obscure phrase, which translated as: ‘Those who open the door and lead the colonists out.’
For the benefit of others they had concocted a cover name using the same letters: the Global Regiment for Intelligence & Defense. They described themselves as a militarized version of Interpol, commissioned to counter an escalation in international security threats. It only ever took the mention of a few of the more infamous of such acts for people to nod sagely and agree on the need for an organization like this. Few asked for more details, especially after seeing the breadth of their hardware or the depth of their budgets.
Today, as if he didn’t have enough to deal with, now his phone screen was filling with text about thefts of weaponry and gear from Burroughs Labs. Private sector concerns weren’t normally of interest, except the stolen material had been under closed contract exclusively for GRID’s use. The thief’s presence had not been detected by Burroughs’ excellent security, exhaustive examination had failed to reveal how the intruders had penetrated the secret subterranean work area, and they had left nothing behind.
Burroughs Labs’ Chief of Security Alexander McGregor had no leads. He knew McGregor’s reputation. Competent and dedicated, far from the typical corporate drone, McGregor was taking the thefts as a personal affront.
Kriegmacher’s suspicions naturally fell first on CERN trying to play catch-up. But it might also have been another group, recently brought to his attention. Called the Cassandra Foundation and ostensibly an art restoration and historical society, there seemed to be much more going on behind the Foundation’s walls than met the eye. His people had confirmed political party contributions being made in many countries for many years by the Foundation. Big contributions. It wasn’t the size of donations that looked odd, but the number of countries whose politicians they had access to. It was more money than most modern corporations dispensed, and if the records were to be believed, for much longer than the present industrialized age.
Their influence was present now in China, India and America as much as it had been in the former Soviet Union and in Britain during its expansion around the globe three centuries ago. Their support of different ideologies showed this Foundation didn’t play favorites. The British connections extended all the way back through that country’s French, German and Danish roots. They were referenced also in Rome, in Greece, in Israel and in Egypt. And even then, they didn’t seem ‘new’. This appeared to be a multi-generational organization, without allegiance to any one nation.
Yet as active as they seemed, they had no website and paid no taxes. When his people had looked into where they maintained offices, they appeared to hold property around the world for which no titles were on file, but which each government listed by as not being public land either. According to the public records, these sites simply didn’t exist.
Kriegmacher’s masters had listed the Foundation as irrelevant to the mission and told him to ignore them. But when one of his aides had furnished a map of the world with each Foundation site circled, it was a geometry he had seen before. In many locations their properties overlaid a different map GRID had made of ley lines and natural vortices—weak spots where the dimensional membranes were naturally thin22. That couldn’t be coincidence. It painted the Foundation as a player in his world. But both gut and reason inclined him to relegate the Foundation to the least likely category when it came to assigning blame for common thievery.
Terrorists, then. Ordinary, garden-variety, homegrown terrorists seeking advanced weaponry to utilize for their own unknown nefarious purposes. But that explanation tended to contradict itself. It would seem that any group capable of so thoroughly defeating Burroughs Labs tightest security already had access to technology more advanced than anything they were attempting to steal. It made no sense. The whole business made no sense.
Whoever was responsible for the thefts had left behind no clue as to their identity, purpose, or origin. To Kriegmacher as well as the baffled McGregor who he called this same morning, the absence of a single image of the intruders was the most ominous indicator of their capabilities. In his frustration, McGregor had said it was almost as if the thieves were capable of entering the lab facilities via ‘another dimension’.
Kriegmacher let out a gruff exhalation, the theft now squarely in his domain because if that possibility were to be considered it meant someone else had beaten his own scientists in a race where they had thought themselves the only runner.
He needed answers. Locking the door to his office, he went to a source most extraordinary. But to understand that source, one must first comprehend where it came from . . .
GRID PHYSICISTS using Fermilab’s facilities had made much progress in developing gating technology over the past years. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles had successfully flown through small seams opened into the world on the other frequency, and for minutes before the windows had collapsed they had collected instrument feedback. On one such sortie there had been the briefest blip, never
repeated, of what appeared to be the thermal image of a human shape disappearing over the lip of a hill just before the camera feed was lost.
He had originally kept this knowledge from his masters until he had something concrete to report. But it reminded him of an oddity he had recently seen on the Internet, supposedly newly found footage from an old 70’s show about spirit photography, also known as Kirlian imaging.23
It was a fringe theory that had led scientists like genius energy physicist Nikola Tesla, Princeton’s Robert Van de Graaff and others to postulate that living things give off a coronal discharge that can be filmed when electrical current is used to accelerate electrons and protons. The television show’s silent unaired footage revealed a man sitting in a chair filmed through a normal lens, then on a split screen he was shown through a Kirlian lens. Blue and red shimmers radiated around him like an aura. Kriegmacher had seen films like this before.
What caught his attention was when the white-coated scientist running the session rolled up the man’s left trouser to reveal he was an amputee. Yet on the aural image, the whole leg appeared in place. He had heard of soldiers continuing to feel ‘phantom limbs’ after battlefield losses, but he had never seen photographed proof that after the body was gone, something of it remained as a field of light24.
Was this the spiritual plane he had heard about from Kabbalists and rabbis since he was a boy? Was this the evidence that photons comprised each person’s form on levels both physical and ethereal?
It was while he was considering this that the reason for the video being unaired and locked in a metal canister for thirty years became apparent.
Behind the man shown seated in the chair, another pulse of color appeared. It floated like a will-o’-the-wisp, orange and yellow, edging through the rear wall of that room. As it came forward, it took on shape. A shape unmistakably human in form, striding forwards through a gurney and desk, unimpeded by the physical objects.
Echoes of Worlds Past Page 16