by David Wood
“You must understand that, for a physicist, there is no such thing as ‘the future.’ Einstein said, ‘People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.’ Time is often referred to as a fourth dimension because everything in the universe takes place not only in a physical location, but also a temporal one. We believe the earth is fixed in its orbit and every year comes back around to where it was the year before. However, during that year, the entire solar system has moved many thousands of kilometers as the spiral arm of the Milky Way orbits around the galactic core, and the entire galaxy itself moves an even greater distance as the universe continues to expand.
“If it were possible to travel backward in time, we would not only have to move to a different temporal location, but also travel to a different physical location, light years from where we are at present.”
“I don’t think that was the point Einstein was trying to make,” countered Professor.
Dorion nodded. “You are correct. I merely point that out as a way of showing how facile the belief in time travel really is. But a common theme of time travel stories is the notion that, if it were possible to travel in time, we might effect a change that would alter history. Even a minor change, such as stepping on an insect, might have catastrophic consequences.
“Since the advent of quantum mechanics, most physicists have come to believe in the existence of what has been termed the multiverse hypothesis in which all possible permutations of reality exist as parallel universes. In such a scenario, our time traveler would not return to a changed present, but rather enter an alternative universe.”
“I believe another variation of that hypothesis suggests that those parallel universes exist as probabilities, and cease to exist based on what we observe. Like Schrodinger’s Cat, where two equally possible universes exist until we open the box and find out whether the cat is alive or dead, at which point one of those universes vanishes.”
“Does it? Or are we limited by our ability to perceive only one universe?”
Jade felt a little lost by the discussion. “What’s this got to do with dark matter?”
“Ah, forgive me. I shall try to explain. As I said earlier, physicists believe that time, as we understand it, is an illusion. Einstein proved this. We all perceive the passage of time as a constant because we are all traveling through space-time at the same constant velocity, but if we could travel faster, we would perceive time passing more slowly. The equation of space-time, and of matter and energy, must balance.”
“You’re losing me again.”
“He’s talking about black holes,” intoned Professor. “At the event horizon of a black hole, the gravitational energy is so strong that time would appear to stand still.”
“Yes, and if it were possible to survive the journey through a black hole, we would find ourselves in a different universe, a different permutation of reality. However, black holes are an extreme example. Recent experiments have demonstrated that the farther you move away from the earth’s center of gravity, time passes slower. Believe it or not, your head is aging slower than your feet. You are moving faster in space-time—the difference is measured in nanoseconds—the closer you get to the center of the earth. Any object with sufficient mass may cause local relativistic space-time effects.
“Following the…ah, episode in the CMS, it occurred to me that perhaps I had inadvertently interacted with a deposit of dark matter created by our experiments with the Large Hadron Collider. The super dense WIMPs altered my perception of space-time just enough that, for a few moments, I experienced an alternate universe, and at an accelerated rate, so that I quite literally saw the future.”
Jade glanced at Professor. If anyone could understand what Dorion was saying and offer a rational rebuttal, it was he, but Professor was listening with rapt attention and not a trace of skepticism. She turned back to Dorion. “And did you?”
“Not exactly. Lauren went climbing in Chamonix and there was an accident, but she was not killed. Nevertheless, I could not dismiss what had happened. Had I seen one possible universe? Had my warning to her somehow changed the outcome?
“It occurred to me that this incident might not be an isolated event. Even discounting the fraudulent claims of charlatans, there is an overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence to suggest that precognition does occur. Moreover, since dark matter may be all around us, accumulating into small pockets of increased density that we are unable to detect, might that not be a plausible explanation for these allegedly psychic premonitions.
“Of course, my hypothesis was not exactly embraced in the scientific community.” He paused as if this was a painful admission. “After I…left CERN, I was able to find independent funding to continue my research. I decided to begin with an examination of the historical record, looking more closely at accounts of seers and oracles, particularly those associated with a specific geographical location—the Oracle at Delphi, for example. That is how I came to be here. There are numerous accounts of oracles and accurate prophecy throughout Mesoamerican history. You are aware, I am sure, that the Aztecs were expecting the arrival of Quetzalcoatl at the exact moment in history when Cortez arrived.”
Jade and Professor exchanged a look.
“And of course, there is the Mayan prophecy of the end of time.”
“Umm, check your calendar,” Jade said. “That didn’t happen.”
Dorion gave a coy smile. “That the prophesied apocalypse did not occur may be due to the fact that we were alerted to it and took appropriate precautions. Or, it may have occurred in a parallel reality, right on schedule. Did you know that there was a solar storm in 2012 that just missed the earth by a week? Scientists at NASA believe it would have destroyed modern civilization if we had been in its path. Perhaps in another universe, that’s exactly what happened, just as the Maya foresaw.”
He shrugged again. “Who can say? I was not looking to make these old stories fit my hypothesis, but merely investigating all the possibilities. My expertise—and a generous contribution from my benefactor—made it possible for me to get work as a technician for the muon tomography project here in Teotihuacan.”
“What were you hoping to find?” asked Professor. “Since there’s no way to detect dark matter, how would you know if you were right?”
“With another vision,” said Jade, before Dorion could answer.
The physicist nodded. “And it would seem that is exactly what happened.”
“So I got too close to the WIMPs and caught a glimpse of a possible future, but because we were warned, we changed the outcome?”
“Just so.”
Professor drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Well, it’s an interesting idea. Too bad all the spheres were undoubtedly destroyed in the blast. Except for the Moon stone,” he added hastily before Jade could say it. “If it exists.”
“If the spheres were somehow employed as collectors for the WIMPs,” Dorion said, “then it would also explain why Jade was unable to move the Earth stone. It would have been much more massive than it appeared. However, it might have been possible to remove one of the smaller spheres. Perhaps the ancient inhabitants of the city took it with them when they abandoned Teotihuacan, or perhaps the Aztecs relocated it when they arrived centuries later.”
“Or the conquistadors got it,” said Jade. “Maybe our friend back there got trapped by the cave in after his buddies took the Moon stone.”
Professor held up the leather bound book he had taken from the mummified corpse. “Might be something about that in here.”
“As much as I’d love to stop for story time, I think maybe that will have to wait until we’re out of here.”
“Seconded,” replied Professor, tucking the journal away again in a pocket. “Incidentally, at the risk of being labeled a pessimist again, has anyone else noticed that we seem to be going down?”
Jade whipped her head around, pointing her light back in th
e direction they had come. In the fifteen minutes or so that they’d been walking, there view had not changed much, but she certainly had not been aware of a change in elevation. Looking back, she could not tell if they were actually going down or not. “Are you sure?”
“Trust me, I’ve humped up and down enough hills to recognize the difference. It’s slight, but we’re lower now than when we started.”
After considering this news for a moment, Jade shook her head. “It doesn’t change anything. This is the only way to go. The builders must have followed the course of a naturally occurring passage when they cut this tunnel, but we can see the evidence that they were here all around us. It has to go somewhere.”
“You’re assuming that it leads back to the surface,” Professor replied. “What if they used that shaft in the pyramid to get in? What if this was their passage to the Underworld?”
“Well, we can’t very well go back, can we? Instead of always playing devil’s advocate, why don’t you limit yourself to constructive comments?”
Professor shrugged and, evidently unable to offer anything useful, lapsed back into silence. A few minutes later, he was proved right. Half right, at least.
The passage had continued its gradual decline for perhaps another half-mile, during which time Jade began to hear a sound like white noise.
“Running water?” suggested Professor. “We must be near an underground river.”
He said nothing more, perhaps worried that his statement might be misinterpreted as defeatism, but it soon became evident that the source of the sound was indeed water moving through the surrounding rock, and they were getting closer to it with each step.
The passage abruptly opened into a cavern that would have been considered large by any standard, except compared to the expansive chamber where they had found the model of the solar system. Unlike that vast but austere hall, this cavern bore clear evidence, not merely of use by the ancients, but inhabitation.
They found themselves in what appeared to be a temple complex devoted to the Great Goddess. The deity, in all her spidery glory, had been carved into the wall in such a way that the goddess’ mouth was the tunnel entrance; they had, in a manner of speaking, been vomited out of her mouth. Water fountained from several other openings in the wall, which had been incorporated into the sculpture as well, each one situated at the end of one the goddess’ eight limbs. The water collected into six-foot wide channels that framed a rectangular courtyard below the dais upon which they now stood. On either side of the courtyard, just beyond the waterways, were long stone steps that looked remarkably like the bleachers in a stadium. Looking down, Jade could see that the floor of the courtyard was not a flat surface, but sloped gently from each side, like an inverted pyramid, meeting at a narrow trough—about a foot wide and six feet long—in the center. Scattered around the courtyard, at intervals which appeared almost random, were a dozen carved stelae—stylized human-animal hybrids that gazed out with fierce expressions—and everywhere the floor was pock-marked with tiny holes about an inch in diameter.
“Could that be your missing Moon stone?” asked Professor, pointing to a waist-high cylindrical pedestal at the center of the dais, upon which sat a dull black orb, about twelve inches in diameter.
Jade laughed in understanding. “This isn’t a temple. It’s a ball court.”
“Ball court?” asked Dorion, disbelieving. “You mean like football?”
Professor nodded, immediately catching on to Jade’s revelation. “Close. The ball game was played all over Central America. Just like with soccer today, everyone was nuts about it, though there were variations from place to place. The big difference though, at least from what we’ve been able to draw from contemporary accounts and artwork of the period, is that you weren’t allowed to touch the ball with your hands or your feet.”
“What then?”
“You had to use your hips.” He gave a little shimmy that Jade thought would have made Elvis envious.
Jade laughed in spite of their predicament. “The ball game wasn’t just a sporting event. It was part of their worship and a way of determining who the gods favored. We know from wall paintings at Tepantitla that they played the ball game, or at least a version of it, in Teotihuacan, but no court has ever been discovered. I think now we know why.”
Dorion raised his hands inquisitively. “We do?”
“They played it here, in the presence of the Great Goddess.” Jade looked back at the tunnel opening from which they had emerged. “The Goddess of the Underworld.”
“It’s a ball court and a temple,” Professor realized aloud. “They would come down here, probably for special celebrations, and only after appeasing the goddess by winning the ball game would a person be permitted to enter the tunnel and make the journey to the room with the spheres. Or maybe the winners were sacrificed by the priests, who would then enter the tunnel.”
“They sacrificed the winners?” asked Dorion, incredulous. “Hardly an incentive to play your best game.”
“Being offered to the gods was the highest honor. At least that’s what the priests told everyone. It’s the same kind of logic that gets people to blow themselves up with suicide bombs; be a martyr, virgins waiting in the afterlife—”
Jade quickly cut him off. “There’s some evidence of that happening in the late Maya Classical Period and perhaps in Aztec society as well, but probably only on rare occasions. The game had different meanings in different cultures, and sometimes different meanings for different groups within a culture. It was recreation for the average citizen, could be used as a proxy for war, and as we see here, may have had religious significance.”
Dorion pointed at the black orb. “And that is the ball?”
Jade nodded. “Solid rubber. It probably weighs about ten pounds, so you can imagine that players got pretty bruised. Some of the wall art shows players wearing elaborate costumes which may have also been protective equipment, and in the murals at Tepantitla, the players are shown hitting the ball with sticks.”
“It’s a sphere.”
Jade saw what he was driving at. “You think there’s a connection between the planet spheres and the ball game?”
Dorion spread his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “You are the expert. What do you think?”
“Sometimes a ball is just a ball,” muttered Professor.
“A sphere is not just a ball. Its shape is determined by gravity. The planets are spherical because particles of matter—including dark matter—will coalesce into spherical shapes. That is why planets and stars are round. I think it’s remarkable that the ancients understood this.”
“Or maybe the ancients just realized that spheres happen to bounce a lot better that cubes.”
“Even that is not something to be discounted lightly. The reason the sphere bounces better is because of the way energy is distributed throughout.”
“Guys,” Jade said sharply. “It’s a great debate, but let’s have it somewhere else, okay?”
She hopped down from the dais and onto the floor of the courtyard. Dorion however reached out for the ball.
“I don’t think you should—” Before Professor could finish uttering the warning, and a heartbeat before Dorion’s hand could touch the ball, something clicked underfoot. The center of the pedestal upon which the ball rested abruptly fell away and the ball dropped down the center like water down a drain.
Jade heard Professor’s shout and whirled just in time to see the ball shoot from a hole in the side of the wall beneath the dais. She didn’t need the gift of prophecy to know that something very bad was about to happen.
NINE
The ball arced out over the courtyard floor and hit, bouncing with a loud thwock. Jade thought that might trigger whatever nasty surprise the ball court had in store, but aside from the ball continuing on its journey, nothing happened.
In a rush of intuition, Jade saw the reason for this, and just as clearly saw that the danger was far from past. The point of the game
was to keep the ball from reaching the goal, which given the sloping floor, had to be the trough at the center. If a player could do that, they would stay safe. If they failed….
Jade knew from bitter experience that ancient architects had delighted themselves with devising wonderful methods of dealing with unwelcome visitors; there was no telling what sort of death trap they had created here. The ball court was like an enormous pinball game, and if she made the wrong move, it would be game over.
In a split-second, she weighed her choices. She was just a couple steps away from the dais. She could make it back up to that place of relative safety before the ball reached the center... but it would reach the center, and under the circumstances, that seemed like a very bad thing. The only other option was to try and play.
The ball was about ten feet away, already descending for a second bounce. She dove forward, throwing her clasped hands out, trying to get them in between the ball and the floor in a classic volleyball bump.
Her timing was perfect, but that was about the only thing she got right. The solid ball hit like a blow from a hammer, slamming her arms into the floor even as the rest of her body hit the rough surface and, carried forward by her momentum, slid toward the center of the courtyard. The friction tore at her, burning hot through the fabric of her clothes, scraping bare skin raw, though she barely felt any of it. The pain of contact with the ball had left her arms completely numb.
The glancing impact was enough to divert the ball’s course, if only slightly. Jade caught a glimpse of its next bounce. She had managed to knock it onto the section of floor that sloped down from the side of the courtyard. It bounced again, though just barely, and continued rolling along across the slope at a slight curve as gravity began drawing it once again toward the final destination.
Jade struggled to get up. Her arms were nearly useless, so she had to roll to a sitting position to get her feet under her. There was no way she would be able to intercept the ball a second time, but she knew she had to try.