He pushed the door open slowly and led the way into the main room of the institute, the one where just this morning she had met Zane.
His big desk was there, only with no computers on it. A fire was crackling softly in the fireplace, and the same furniture sat in front of the fireplace. Even the drapes on the windows were the same and were pulled.
The room had a slight chill to it as well.
Belle glanced around as she stepped into the big room and the door slid closed with a click.
It now looked exactly like a wall with a large framed picture on it. No way to ever tell there was a door there.
“Now that’s impressive,” Belle said. “You would never know there was a door there.”
“Good,” Duster said. “Latch to open it is built into the trim on the column there beside the door.”
He pointed to it and Belle nodded.
Zane had known it was there, but he played along as if he hadn’t.
“Now let’s take a look outside,” Duster said, turning toward the front door.
“I’m staying right here,” Dawn said.
“Wimp,” Madison said, laughing.
Duster opened the big front door and stepped outside into the gray light beyond the door.
Belle felt the incredible cold hit her almost instantly as she and Zane moved toward the front door.
Duster and Madison both moved out onto the front porch and Zane and Belle followed. Behind them Dawn pushed the big front door closed.
Belle was having a very hard time grasping what she was seeing and feeling.
A light snow was blowing through the trees in front of the mansion. The leaves were long gone from the big trees, and it had to be twenty degrees, if that.
The cold cut through her thin shirt like it wasn’t there. Now she wished she had kept on her sweatshirt, but she doubted it would have helped that much.
Through the snow she could see the stone wall along the front of the mansion, but it had no hedge growing on it.
And the Warm Springs Avenue she could see beyond the wall wasn’t anything more than a wagon trail.
“Welcome to December 17th, 1885,” Duster said. “It’s about two in the afternoon.”
“Amazing” Zane asked, moving toward the front of the porch.
“How is this possible?” Belle asked.
“We stepped into another timeline,” Duster said. “One that is for every intent and purpose identical to our timeline.”
“So you were telling us the truth?” Belle asked.
“We were,” Duster said. “Every word. And we have a lot more to explain, but you would not have stood for it without seeing and experiencing this first.”
Belle was starting to shake from the cold, but she turned to Madison. “So you really are my great-great-grandfather?”
“Actually, the me from another timeline,” Madison said. “We can’t travel back in our own timeline. But yes, I am and genetics will prove it to you as well.”
“Mind of I walk out to the road?” Zane asked.
Duster laughed. “Be my guest.”
Zane stepped carefully down the snow-covered front steps of the mansion and started out toward the front gate.
“I need to see this as well,” Belle said.
“We’ll be inside,” Duster said.
“Zane, wait,” Belle shouted through the light snow.
Zane turned around as she carefully went down the snow-covered front stairs and followed him. She was so cold, she could barely feel her arms and feet, but that didn’t matter at the moment. She needed to prove to herself as well this was actually happening.
He took her hand as she got closer and she wished she could feel it.
Then the two of them walked toward the front gate of the institute together, not saying a word.
Zane managed to get the wrought iron gate open and they walked into the middle of the wagon road that went past the mansion.
Belle flat could not believe what she was seeing and feeling.
Clearly she was in the past.
And at a different time of the year as well.
The two mansions on either side of the main institute building were all that was here. No sign at all of anything else being built along this wagon road.
“They were telling us the truth,” Zane said simply. “We are standing in 1885.”
“They are offering us this so we can research our books better,” Belle said. “No wonder Dawn and Madison’s books have such crisp details.”
If she wasn’t so cold, she would be jumping up and down with excitement.
The impossible really was possible.
Zane looked both directions down the wagon road, then back at the institute buildings over the wall.
Then he let go of her hand and put his arm around her shoulder. “I’ve seen enough. How about you?”
She was so cold that all she could do was nod. The Stanford area got cold in the winter, but nothing like this.
“Let’s head back,” he said.
They had made it back through the gate and were about halfway to the front porch, both of them staggering from the intense cold, when suddenly they found themselves touching the wooden box in the long crystal room three levels underground.
Bonnie had a wire in a gloved hand and was smiling at them. Director Parks was basically standing in the same place he had been.
Bonnie, Duster, Madison, and Dawn were also touching the box.
Belle’s legs almost collapsed under her, but she caught herself on the table. She was shivering and wet and colder than she had ever remembered being before.
Dawn got on one side of her and Bonnie on the other and Madison moved to help Zane.
“Let’s get you both to a hot shower, dry clothes, and some hot chocolate,” Bonnie said as they headed for the door of the crystal room. “Then over some early dinner we can explain all this in more detail.”
All Belle could do was nod, but she had to admit, that sounded wonderful.
Especially the hot shower part.
PART TWO
The Mission
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
June 9th, 2020
Boise, Idaho
BELLE FELT ALMOST warm again after the shower and getting into the sweatpants and sweatshirt that Dawn had gotten for her. Those and the warm slippers and she felt almost human. She and Zane had only been out in the cold for ten minutes, and both of them had been dressed for a warm summer’s day, not a December snowstorm.
Zane had already arrived back into the massive cavern they called the Living Room and was standing beside the long counter sipping on a cup of wonderful-smelling hot chocolate. Dawn was standing near one end of the counter and Bonnie and Duster were behind the counter near the fridge. Parks and Madison were nowhere to be seen.
Dawn smiled at her and slid Belle a cup of the same hot chocolate.
Then the five of them again moved to the closest couch and chair grouping.
Zane was also in sweatpants and a sweatshirt that had a Boise State logo on it. He looked even better than he had before, if that was possible. He sat next to her on the couch facing the other three.
She was so glad he was with her on this. She couldn’t imagine going through this alone, even though she had only known Zane for a few hours today. It felt much longer for some reason.
It felt odd to Belle that even though Dawn and Bonnie and Duster were about her age, they felt much, much older. That also was a strange feeling, and she had a hunch she was about to find out why it existed.
Belle let herself sip on the hot chocolate for a second, letting the warmth and wonderful sweet taste clear her mind even more from the shower. Then she looked up at Dawn.
“So we can travel in time,” Belle said.
Dawn nodded.
“And you have used that to get the fantastic sense of reality and details in your books,” Belle said.
Dawn nodded. “So explain to me a little more about how this works, and then why you showed
me all this.”
Zane was saying nothing, just letting Dawn go, and nodding. She had no idea what he was thinking at the moment.
Dawn glanced at Bonnie and Duster and both nodded that she should go ahead.
“Bonnie and Duster discovered that the crystals in a vast cavern are all the physical representations of other alternate timelines,” Dawn said. “We are inside one such crystal now. Time and energy and matter are all connected and on the matter side, the crystals are the representation.”
“I won’t pretend to understand the math or physics on that,” Belle said. “So before I get confused, keep going in general.”
Dawn smiled and went on. “When those wires are hooked up to that wooden box and the device in the box, anyone touching that box can go to the other timeline for two minutes and fifteen seconds.”
Belle shook her head. “We were in the past for at least twenty minutes, weren’t we?”
“We were,” Dawn said. “And in that timeline, we lived those twenty minutes. But in this timeline, only two minutes and fifteen seconds passed.”
Belle shook her head, suddenly understanding how Dawn and Madison could claim to be her great-great-grandparents.
“So you can go to another timeline, live for decades and decades, and then return and only two minutes will have passed?” Belle asked.
“Exactly,” Dawn said. “And if you die in another timeline, you end up back in your own timeline perfectly alive and fine.”
“Does the timeline you go to and live in sort of reset when you vanish?” Belle asked.
“No,” Dawn said. “You are evidence of that.”
Belle decided to let that slide for the moment.
Zane was saying nothing, mostly just nodding and listening and sipping his hot chocolate. And she wasn’t sure why. But she was still very glad he was beside her.
“When we went back to the 1885 in December,” Bonnie said, “we started a new timeline, a new crystal somewhere in the cavern. Since we changed nothing while there, that timeline got absorbed, for lack of a better way of putting it, back into the regular timelines.”
Belle sipped on her hot chocolate and looked around at the huge cavern two levels under the fantastic mansion on Warm Springs Avenue. “It seems that my worry about funding of the institute no longer matters.”
Dawn smiled. “Being able to travel back in time and understand what is going to happen allows a person to get very rich.”
“We started making investments in different timelines back in the 1880s,” Duster said. “Money is no longer an issue nor will it ever be for any of us, you included.”
Belle was having a hard time still believing all this, but she now understood enough to need a few more answers.
“So why me? And why Zane?”
Dawn nodded to Duster who sat forward. “Dr. Russell, we hope that you will join the institute and build us, over time, the most extensive data bank of genealogy records backed up by genetics. And do it for every human in history and in all timelines.”
Belle laughed, flat shocked at the idea. “That’s a dream job for me, I must agree. But that would take hundreds of years, if that. And computer and data storage needed for that size project is beyond anything we have at this moment in time.”
Belle couldn’t let herself believe that was possible. She could almost accept traveling in time easier than that job.
Bonnie looked at her with an intent look. “Time and technology are not an issue.”
“Can I ask how long you have all lived?” Zane asked, sitting forward suddenly as Belle tried to grasp what Bonnie had said enough to even form a question.
Bonnie and Duster both shrugged. “I stopped counting when we had lived past a thousand years,” Bonnie said.
“And that was a long time ago,” Duster said.
“I’m still counting,” Dawn said, “because I know we get this question from anyone coming into the institute at this level. Madison and I have lived now for about six thousand years in various timelines.”
“Holy shit,” Zane said, sitting back.
Belle flat didn’t know what to feel. Everything in her body felt numb.
Bonnie looked at Belle. “As I said, Dr. Russell, time is not an issue for you anymore. Money is not an issue. And technology is not an issue. The only question is would you like to tackle such a massive project?”
“Let me think about that for a moment,” Belle said, doing her best to catch her breath and just calm her mind.
But deep down she knew the answer instantly. Of course she would.
“How about me?” Zane asked.
Duster looked at Zane and smiled. “Dr. Thomas, or should I say Dr. Logan, we would like your help in a massive underground exploration project.”
Zane snapped back as if hit.
Belle glanced at him as he set his hot chocolate mug on the coffee table. His hand was shaking.
What had just happened?
“You knew?” Zane asked.
“Of course,” Bonnie said as Duster chuckled. “We were just waiting for Dr. Russell to get here to have you both work as a team for a time.”
“But we need you to do something first,” Duster said, “assuming Dr. Russell agrees to our offer of setting up the data bank.”
“What’s that?” Zane asked.
“We need you to take Dr. Russell with you back to Step Two. To establish her there.”
Belle watched as Zane opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, but nothing came out.
“We would like you both to work from here in Step One level. But it would be better for both of you to be safe from any kind of accident.”
Zane just sat back, clearly shocked at something Belle flat didn’t understand.
“Mind explaining what you mean by Step One and Step Two to me?” Belle asked.
“The institute, through time,” Bonnie said, “was designed by all of us with the idea that it would continue to grow. “We are sitting in Step One time. Think of it as a staging area for anything back to 1880 when the institute was constructed.”
Belle nodded, so Bonnie went on.
“Step Two is exactly one hundred years in the future, staying always exactly 100 years in the future from this first step time.”
Belle sort of just stared at her.
Bonnie smiled and went on. “A traveler from Step Two can only travel back to this step and no farther back. From Step Two, the traveler must move to a Step One area of the institute and jump from there, as Zane did today with you.”
She glanced at Zane, shocked. “You are from a hundred years in the future?”
He nodded. “I was supposed to be here working undercover.”
Belle had no idea what to think of that, so she turned back to Bonnie. “How many step platforms are there into the future?”
“At the moment there are four,” Bonnie said.
Zane sat forward on that one, clearly surprised. “The institute actually goes two hundred years beyond Step Two? I had heard that but never had it confirmed.”
“It does,” Duster said.
Dawn looked at Belle. “If Zane died right now, right here, he would return to his time very much alive. And all the time he has spent back here, all the years of setting up a background cover and writing books and so on would have only cost him two minutes and fifteen seconds in his real timeline.”
“That’s why we want Zane to take you to his timeline,” Dawn said, “and then the both of you return instantly to this timeline just after you left here. We want you to be based in the future as well, so if something happens to you here, you will be fine.”
Belle opened her mouth, but not a thought or a word happened.
She had not often experienced a complete blank, but at the moment, that was how she was thinking.
“I didn’t know a person could travel forward in time,” Zane said.
“With help from a person from the future, they can,” Bonnie said. “Just as you can take clothes and notebo
oks and money back with you, by simply holding another person’s hand, you can take them with you as well.”
Zane just nodded. “And that establishes the person in the future timeline?”
“It does,” Duster said. “The person becomes a part of that timeline.”
“So that’s why entire lines of DNA start and suddenly stop,” Belle said, finally starting to get a grasp on her mind again.
“Yes,” Dawn said. “it is why, as your great-great-grandparents, you could not find our record before that time. We did not exist in this timeline before then.”
“So how many are traveling in time?” Belle asked.
“At any given moment maybe a hundred,” Duster said.
Belle laughed. “Then you have a problem. I have already found, in just getting started with my research, over ten thousand different dead-end genetics lines.”
Now it was time for Bonnie and Duster to be shocked.
“So I need to get one thing clear in my mind, if that’s possible at the moment,” Belle said, doing her best to form a simple thought.
“Go ahead and we’ll try to answer anything,” Dawn said, glancing with a worried expression at Bonnie and Duster.
“Say I was a traveler from Step Four,” Belle said, “and I went to Step Three and then jumped again with a new crystal to Step Two and then jumped again through a new crystal to here and then jumped again through yet another crystal into the past.”
Bonnie nodded.
Belle went on. “So I could live a thousand lifetimes in the past from here, with only two minutes and fifteen seconds passing in each lifetime. Correct?”
All three of the founders of the institute facing her nodded.
“And then I could live thousands of full lifetimes in this stage and only two minutes and fifteen seconds will have passed in Stage Two, when I returned, for each lifetime back here. And so on. Correct?”
“Correct,” Dawn said. “But you don’t need to be from Stage Four, just Stage Two will do it, since you could live a thousand lifetimes from one life here, then jump to Stage Two and reset for another two minutes and live another thousand lifetimes. And so on and so on. Timelines are infinite.”
Belle glanced at the now haunted look in Zane’s eyes.
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