Silence once again.
Sophie was trying to understand what it would be like to live for entire lifetimes and then get a chance to simply restart. How was that possible?
“So the historical research you do is accurate?” Wade asked Dawn.
Sophie could feel a slight bit of excitement returning as Wade brought back in their research.
“It is,” Dawn said. “I lived many lifetimes in Roosevelt and again many lifetimes in the lodge we build up the valley from Roosevelt.”
“So why did you want us to research Grapevine Springs?” Wade asked. “You could just go back and visit it.”
“It’s not there,” Duster said. “I did go back.”
Silence once again in the big cavern.
Suddenly, everything they had been saying snapped into place and it all made sense to Sophie.
Complete sense.
“When did you go back to look for the town?” Sophie asked, smiling and laughing a little. “When in this timeline?”
“Right before we accepted you to the institute,” Duster said, frowning. “It’s why we had you both research the old town.”
“And in all the other timelines that are similar to this one,” Sophie said, “you would have accepted us at the same time? Correct?”
All three nodded.
“And this timeline is your base timeline, correct?” Sophie asked.
“The one we leave from is the base timeline,” Bonnie said.
Sophie turned slightly and smiled at Wade. She stuck out her hand to him like she was offering to shake his hand.
He looked puzzled, but took her hand. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Olsen. I’m Mrs. Olsen.”
For a moment she saw the puzzled look in Wade’s eyes and she just kept smiling because she knew in just an instant he would understand. They had shared all the research on Grapevine Springs. Every detail that they could find.
Then, after just a second or so, she saw the understanding come over his face. He laughed and shook her head back, “Wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Olsen.”
She laughed and kissed him. Then they both turned to face the puzzled looks from Duster and Bonnie and Dawn.
“You want me to tell them, Mrs. Olsen?” Wade asked, smiling again at Sophie. “Or would you like to?”
“Oh, we can share,” Sophie said, laughing. “You start.”
“In the late spring of 1897,” Wade said, “just after the snow cleared in the area, a young prospecting couple found the Grapevine Springs Valley.”
Sophie loved how Bonnie and Duster and Dawn were just nodding.
“Their names were Olsen,” Sophie said. “They represented some wealthy businessmen in Boise who sold lots and helped finance the construction of the main part of Grapevine Springs.”
“They ran the general store for decades until the town had mostly vanished,” Wade said.
“They sold off their interest to the town in 1924,” Sophie said.
She could see the look of understanding finally coming over the three brilliant people in front of her.
“Grapevines Springs didn’t exist when you went back months ago,” Wade said.
“Because you hadn’t told us about the town yet,” Sophie said. “Or any of this.”
“And so when you went back, we hadn’t started the town yet,” Wade said.
Sophie just loved the shaking heads and smiles and chuckles from the three. It made her feel like she belonged here.
And that felt great.
TWENTY-FOUR
October 18th, 2018
Boise, Idaho
AFTER ANOTHER HOUR of talking and getting used to the idea that he could jump into different timelines, Wade was floored when Director Parks came back into the big cavern and said, “We need to get these two established in 2118.”
Wade had no idea what that meant at all.
“You going to do it?” Duster said.
“I just told Kerri that I would be much younger when I got home,” Parks laughed.
“Six months?” Bonnie asked.
“And you think Kerri wouldn’t notice?” Director Parks asked, then laughed.
“2118?” Wade asked, not having a clue as to what the director was talking about.
“We built this institute like a way station into the future,” Duster said. “This timeline just keeps moving forward and crystals are stationed every hundred years for the next four hundred years.”
“Someone from 2118 can only come back as far as 2018,” Bonnie said.
“We have all the different areas scattered in different chambers,” Duster said, waving at the cavern around them.
“We are all established in the future,” Bonnie said. “Long story on how we managed that, but we are.”
Wade suddenly realized what that meant. “So if something happens to you in this life, you have only actually lived for just over two minutes in the future.”
“Exactly,” Bonnie said.
“You are immortal,” Sophie said, her voice hushed.
Wade knew she was right, but couldn’t really grasp it.
“In all reality,” Duster said, “we have lifespans in a future time, but in this time, we can live and then live again for as long as we like. Just as we do when we go back into the past from here. So yes, in essence we are immortal. And in a few minutes you will be as well.”
Wade just opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
The idea of living forever had never crossed his mind. He had a lot he wanted to get done and had always seemed to be in a hurry because of limited time. But now he was being offered unlimited time.
That was a dream he flat couldn’t grasp.
“Painless,” Director Parks said, smiling at Sophie and Wade. “I promise. Come with me.”
“Might as well jump them to 2218,” Duster said. “Just to be safe and give them a real tour.”
Parks laughed. “I’m going to be nine months younger now. Kerri’s going to have to catch up now. You know how she feels about younger men.”
Duster and Bonnie both laughed at that.
Wade had a hunch there was a story behind that.
Wade and Sophie both stood and Sophie took his hand, holding on tight.
“We’ll be back in about twenty minutes,” Parks said. “Then we can talk about heading to Grapevine Springs.”
Wade saw that Bonnie and Duster and Dawn were all nodding.
“We’ll be getting ready,” Bonnie said.
Wade decided to just ignore that until they finished what they were doing at the moment.
One major life event at a time was more than enough.
Director Parks led them in the opposite direction across the large living room area and through a door there, down a long carved-out-of-stone tunnel, and then down two flights of stairs.
When he reached the bottom and opened a door there into a massive cavern, the lights came up.
Wade was shocked. The cavern looked like someone had bought out an entire Walmart store. Maybe two or three. Everything anyone could need in this time, all sorted for easy access.
“How do you maintain all this if only the twenty-two of you know about this cavern?” Sophie asked as they headed through the large cavern to a row of doors on the other side.
“We do a lot of shopping,” Director Parks said, nodding. “Take turns, actually. Some of us like it more than others. But from where we are going, there are just about sixty who know about this part of the institute and travel back to this time and places along the way. They help keep this stocked as well by buying and leaving things here when they leave.”
Wade was stunned.
“Who runs the institute in 2118?” Sophie asked.
“I do,” Director Parks said. “Remember, to be back here for a lifetime, I am only gone for a few minutes at a time in the future, although I do go back and forth far more often.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sophie said.
“And you run it in 2218 as well?” Wade asked.
“I do,” Parks said. “Same r
eason. I am actually established and aging in 2318, but with all the work here and in the next few hundred years, I spend very little time in 2318.”
“How many years have you actually lived?” Sophie asked.
Parks laughed. “Kerri and I gave up counting past five thousand years. Bonnie and Duster are far, far older than that.”
Wade just flat wanted to sit down, but by that point they were at the row of doors in the wall. Parks opened the first one and went in.
The long room looked exactly as the other long room had looked that took them back to 1885. Wooden tables with wooden boxes on them, wire fences down both sides, and glowing crystals tucked into the stone walls.
“No one can go farther back with these crystals than this moment,” Director Parks said. “Bonnie and Duster figured out a way to limit the range to exactly one hundred years on these and no farther back than 1882 from the first chamber we were in.”
“Where is the other chamber to jump the next hundred years?” Sophie asked.
“It’s in another area,” Director Parks said as he led them down the line to a crystal that was already hooked up to a machine. “But at this point in time, it has no crystals in it.”
Wade nodded. If the traveling was limited to only one hundred year jumps, there would be no reason to stock that chamber. So this place was like a train station. You had to change trains to go farther back or forward.
“How many researchers are authorized to go back into the 1880s?” Wade asked as Director Parks put on a leather glove.
“Counting you two,” Director Parks said, “twenty-four. The twenty-four researchers who started in this time period so far.”
“So no one from 2118 can access that other chamber?”
“They cannot,” Parks said, standing next to the wooden machine. “Come over and hold onto me tightly as well as each other.”
“That’s this timeline?” Sophie asked, pointing to the crystal in the wall.”
“It is,” Director Parks said.
“That’s the timeline we were born in?” Wade asked.
Director Parks chuckled. “Actually, you were born in every crystal in this room and every crystal in the entire complex and an infinite number of more crystals in the nexus caverns.”
Wade suddenly realized what Parks was saying. If the universes were basically the same, then they were in all of them. Doing the same thing in each one.
“Come in close now,” the director said.
Wade, holding Sophie’s hand, put his other arm around Director Parks. Sophie reached around and took Wade’s other hand so they had the director wrapped up in a giant hug, Wade on his right, Sophie on his left.
This was not a position Wade would have ever imagined himself being in with Director Parks.
Director Parks put his uncovered hand on their hands and then moved all three of their hands down to touch the wooden box. Then, holding on tight, he pulled the wire off the machine with his gloved hand.
Nothing happened.
“You can let go now,” Director Parks said, laughing. “Welcome to January 6th, 2118.”
TWENTY-FIVE
January 6th, 2118
Boise, Idaho
SOPHIE DIDN’T FEEL like she was a hundred years in the future. In fact, she didn’t know exactly what she was feeling.
Director Parks left the one wire on the ground with the other still attached to the machine and the other end attached to the crystal on the other side of the fence.
He led them out of the room and through a very different warehouse room now. Some stuff looked the same, but there was a bunch of stuff that Sophie didn’t recognize.
Director Parks offered no explanation, but just led them out, locking the door behind him. Then they headed through a long rock tunnel that seemed to bend and curve to the left.
“We are going around under the big living room area two floors up,” Parks said. “No point in being distracted up there at the moment since we are jumping forward again.”
At that point he reached another locked door and went in.
“Wow,” Wade said and Sophie had to agree. It was another massive room full of clothing, merchandise, and equipment of all sorts. Much of it she didn’t recognize at all.
They went quickly through the room to the far wall that was again covered in a line of doors. And again, Director Parks opened the first one.
He went down the line to a machine that was hooked up to a crystal. Sophie could see other machines hooked to other crystals, which meant someone was in the past from here.
“Same routine,” Director Parks said as he put on a glove.
“Didn’t update the wooden boxes?” Wade asked.
“When something works,” the director said, “why mess with it?”
Sophie nodded to that as she and Wade again gave the director a large hug.
Once again the director took their hands and touched the book while pulling the wire.
Then they all stepped back. “Welcome to 2218. Would you like to go take a look or just head back? But this is now where you are grounded. Anything in the past now is only taking two minutes and fifteen seconds of your life here.”
Sophie wanted to take a look at the world, but at the same time, she didn’t.
“Not yet,” she said. “I think I would like to understand things a little more before I do, and maybe study a little of the two hundred years of history we just jumped over.”
Wade nodded. “I feel the same way. And to be honest, I would be scared to death to go up there and look out that front door like we did in 1885.”
Director Parks laughed. “All you would see would be other homes and an elevated magnetic transit. And some new trees. But I sure do understand.”
“So we are based here now because we came forward with you?”
“That’s correct. You have a lot of time to understand this time period. But before you do come to this time, you must come to me and we will jump you forward another hundred in case something happens here.”
“So we can’t be killed?” Sophie asked, still no sure about how all this was working.
“Oh, you can be killed in any past,” Parks said. “I would try to avoid it, actually. But say you were killed in an auto accident in 2018, you would wake up in 2118 with only two minutes past.”
“And if we jumped back before the accident?”
“You would jump back into a timeline where you had not jumped back in before. Infinite timelines,” Parks said. “You can’t be in the same time with yourself in any timeline. If it happens, time splits you to a new timeline where you are not there for some reason or another. Try to avoid doing that when you can.”
Sophie nodded.
“Let’s head back,” Parks said, moving to a door in the cage and going in, “so Bonnie and Duster, as mathematicians, can explain more of this far better than I can.”
Sophie watched as Parks wrote a note under a new crystal, then with gloves on, he hooked the wires to the crystal.
Then he came back out, closed the gate, and hooked one wire to a machine just down the table from the one his wire was hooked to. Then he went over to the machine they had come through and checked the exact date it had been set for, then came back and set the new box.
“January 6th, 2118,” he said, pointing to the timer. “About five minutes after we left so we don’t fire up another timeline by crossing over.”
Sophie nodded.
Director Parks handed Wade a glove and Wade put it on his right hand.
Sophie took his left hand.
“Hook the wire to the box,” Director Parks said.
Wade did as instructed with the gloved hand and Parks looked at it to make sure it was right.
Then Parks nodded. “Both of you touch the box with your bare hands at the same time. Then step back and wait for me.”
Wade glanced at Sophie and she could see the worry in his eyes that she was feeling.
“On three,” he said. “One, two, three.”
Director Parks was gone. Just flat gone.
“Oh, shit,” Wade said as they turned to stare at the box they had touched the first time. “How scary is this?”
Sophie laughed, her voice sounding strained. “Too damn scary.”
At that moment Director Parks appeared without a sound, and the wire that had been disconnected from his box was now connected.
Sophie couldn’t remember feeling so relieved before.
“How long was the difference?” the director asked.
“About thirty seconds,” Wade said.
“Perfect,” Director Parks said, smiling.
He moved over and went through the gate again to the crystal Sophie and Wade had come through.
He marked under the crystal on the tablet there.
“I wrote your two first names,” Parks said, “and the word “full” meaning you jumped the entire time possible.”
He pointed to the crystal he was using. “I already have that marked on that one.”
“So we just did this in an infinite number of timelines,” Sophie asked, staring at the two crystals. “That’s why we can be in a different timeline than you and still be having the same conversation?”
“That’s correct,” Parks said. “And if something happened to you in this 2118 timeline, like an accident or death, only two minutes will have expired a hundred years in the future.”
At that, he turned and led them out of the narrow crystal room, back through all the supplies that looked both familiar and very alien to Sophie, and then down the tunnel again to the door that would lead them back to 2018.
Sophie just followed, holding Wade’s hand, feeling numb.
Ten minutes later, in 2018, they made it to the large living room area where Bonnie, Duster, and Dawn still sat talking.
It was going to take Sophie a very long time to understand completely what had just happened.
A very long time.
But it seems that she and Wade now had exactly that.
They basically had forever.
But she honestly had no idea what that really meant.
All she really hoped was that Wade wanted to spend that forever with her. Not having him beside her was starting to scare her more than anything she had seen so far.
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