30th Century: Escape (30th Century Trilogy Book 1)

by Mark Kingston Levin

  Jennifer was exhausted and wondered whether her answers had made sense to these people who in all fairness were nine hundred years behind her in comprehension. Everyone left while the committee voted whether to grant Jennifer her PhD.

  Jennifer knew that there was academic jealously among two of her committee members and Kala White. Kala got promoted to full professor and they were both male associate professors with more seniority. Maybe they will not approve my dissertation. Jennifer wrung her hands and chewed on her cheek. She wanted this degree. She knew the material was way ahead of its time. Could the committee members sign off? Jennifer fretted as guilt swelled within her core.

  Kala White looked up at her with a smile. “Yes, congratulations, Doctor Heros.”

  * * *

  Her cousin Louis Heros was working on a major redevelopment with the Tahitian government, putting in the infrastructure in Papeete. Jennifer had mediated a compromise about selling off about one point five billion Canadian dollars in assets and distributing to the shareholders.

  If the redevelopment of the old warehouse section of Papeete went well, their family could make half of that back in five years or so. Things were clicking on all cylinders for her at the moment, Jennifer thought.

  Her Christmas celebration was going to be tumultuous and festive. She’d be surrounded by all her friends and Marty’s family.

  Marty, Jennifer, Mike and Alice had been meeting on Saturdays for foursome sex and were now even more comfortable with each other. Jennifer welcomed more opportunities to explore her sexuality.

  At the same time as she was making plans for Christmas, Jennifer was also focused on her wedding to Marty. She wanted to plan the wedding with Marty but he encouraged her to hire a wedding planner. They were both busy and it would be hard to find the time to iron out all the details. This aspect of historical cultural life fascinated Jennifer and she wanted to absorb herself in the rituals. She bought bridal magazines three inches thick and pored over the photographs and articles. Alice filled her in on many things she wouldn’t have known.

  * * *

  Anne and Jill invited Jennifer and Marty to lunch. They were having their own wedding and wanted to talk about how that might affect the kids.

  Marty drove, looking more relaxed than he used to when traveling to see his ex-wife. His anger and fear had dissipated. “Thank you for opening my eyes,” he told Jennifer. “I still feel like a hypocrite, but it’s the least I can do to make it up to Anne. What a jerk I have been.”

  Jennifer and Marty arrived outside the restaurant and found Anne and Jill already seated.

  “Hello Anne. Hello Jill,” Marty said.

  Jennifer said, “Aloha,” and hugged both women tightly.

  “Jennifer and I have agreed to support your wedding and marriage one hundred percent,” Marty said.

  Anne jumped out of her chair and hugged Marty and kissed him on both cheeks. Jill did the same with Jennifer.

  “I was expecting a major battle over the kids,” Anne shared, with tears of joy in her eyes.

  “No! Anne, I have grown up thanks to Jennifer opening my eyes to something I had blocked,” Marty said. “I want more time with the kids but I will not use your marriage against you because it’s wrong to bargain over the kids.”

  “Marty, I’m proud of you again. I’m proud you are the father of my children again.” Anne wiped tears away, smiling.

  “One more thing I want to tell you before we announce it to the world—Jennifer and I are planning a wedding in June.”

  “Congratulations!” Anne said.

  “Congratulations to you both,” Jill echoed.

  They ate and spoke about mutual wedding plans. Marty and Anne agreed to share custody of the kids equally. Jennifer was so happy for him.

  After lunch, it was time to drive to pick up Jennifer’s Montreal relatives from the airport. Marty’s parents would be meeting them at Jennifer’s condo, which had more room for Marty’s parents than his schooner. Everyone was getting together for the holiday season this year.

  The airport pickup went well. Evette and her new husband, Marc, rode back with Marty and Jennifer.

  At the condo, Marty’s father and mother met Jennifer’s extended family and were warm, if a bit standoffish.

  “Evette, thank you for coming to our year-end party,” Jennifer said. “We are so happy that you got married to Dr. Marc Levin.”

  “I love her even more than she loves me,” Marc said, putting his arm around Evette and kissing her on the forehead.

  Jennifer smiled with her foreknowledge of the big achievements these two would realize together.

  They discussed a tour of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology on Coconut Island the next morning.

  Marty also asked, “Would you newlyweds like to go sailing on the White Heron during your stay?”

  “Yes, of course, we would love to,” Evette told him after glancing over at Marc to check his reaction.

  Marty noted, “We have a very limited ferry schedule to get to and from the Coconut Island because it is Christmas.”

  “How long will we have there?” Marc asked.

  “About two hours,” Jennifer said.

  Marty added, “I had plans to take the kids and my ex-wife to see the Institute, as my kids asked for this as a present. My ex-wife, Anne, is Christian so she celebrates Christmas with the kids.”

  “We’d love to go,” Marc said.

  * * *

  The next night Jennifer was nervous about having the Holiday Party, as she called it. Marty’s parents were Jewish and Jennifer was not. She was a bit worried they would disapprove of so much excess during Christmas.

  Jennifer and Marty spent some time with his parents before the party started, meeting them at the bar in their hotel.

  Charlie and Dee hugged Marty as soon as he approached them. Jennifer waited as they made their greetings.

  Then she said, “I am so happy you both could come to share this party with our family and friends.”

  “Is this the genius you have been talking about marrying, Marty?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes, Dad!” Marty replied heartily.

  “You failed to tell me she was one of the most beautiful women in the world,” Charlie said with a grin.

  “Thank you for the compliment, Charlie!” Jennifer smiled.

  Jennifer talked with Dee for about thirty minutes, while Marty spoke to his father about his work and their wedding plans. “Can you tell me about your wedding to Charlie?” Jennifer asked.

  “We were married by a rabbi at the Sinai Temple in Beverly Hills,” Dee replied. “Where do you want to be married?”

  “I will leave it up to Marty, but I do not mind outdoors in the open or inside with some of nature’s beauty to remind us of our interdependence in this bio-system.”

  “That seems nice. It fits Marty’s love for the environment and ecosystems.”

  “My cousin Evette just got married to a Jewish Doctor, Marc Levin. They got married in a synagogue and in a church to keep both families happy.”

  Marty told his parents, “Jennifer accepted Anne and Jill without hesitation as co-parents of my children and made friends with the both. I’ve come a long way from that angry man I started out as.”

  Jennifer blushed as she listened to Marty talk. He was such a sweetheart.

  “Do you love her, son?” Charlie asked.

  “I love her more than I have ever loved before. We plan to get married in June. We will get engaged tonight officially. Do you want to hold the ring?”

  “Sure thing, son,” Charlie replied.

  * * *

  The dinner party went well. Everyone ate and laughed. Jennifer was happy that the celebration was going so well.

  In the middle of dinner, Renee stood up and tapped her fork against her glass.

  “A toast to the engagement of my niece, Jennifer, and her professor, Marty Zitonick.”

  Jennifer drank deeply and watched as Marty did the same. With a new sur
name, she wouldn’t feel like such a fraud in this century.

  CHAPTER 31

  Depression

  Anne and Jill’s wedding came and went. Jennifer wept when the two women recited the vows they’d written themselves. The children were happier and were doing well in school. Jennifer was excited about planning her own wedding when she received an email from Evette that rocked her foundation. It was like an earthquake destroying a large sky scraper. Back in the recesses of her mind’s foundation, it was worse than a Syndos attack. Her identity evaporated like a drop of water hitting white hot steel.

  The Heros family had secretly conducted a DNA test on her while she was in Canada visiting; the test had found that she was an exact match to the Jennifer born in Nuku Hiva in 1994.

  Her mind reeled with the monstrous echoes recoiling deep in her subconscious. How could she and this other woman be the same person? She had memories of her time in the future and none of her time in this century, yet they both were the same, per this test.

  The other Jennifer disappeared at the age of fourteen after living her whole life in French Polynesia. The first time Jennifer remembered being in the Islands was as an adult, in the thirtieth century.

  The thirtieth-century Jennifer grew up in Montreal. At fourteen she was skiing with her parents in the mountains half the globe away.

  Wasn’t she?

  Was she insane? Could everything she knew be false? Were her memories of the thirtieth century and completing Trans-Time One a delusion? She flipped through her manuscript file looking for anything that could indicate she’d imagined it all. Maybe the sleep deprivation of preparing for her dissertation had made her think the story was true?

  Nothing made sense anymore. She stopped going out and spent most of her days in bed. Rejections of her paper on dark energy kept coming in; the editors said it was too complex, too iffy, too imaginative, not concrete enough, etc. Not one science journal she had chosen wanted any part of it, despite the White-Block equations being published.

  A gloomy insidious emptiness crept inside her fractured mind with the density of a neutron star pressing her psyche to the limits. The weight of the darkness removed all light like a dormant black hole. Her emotions were sucked into her primordial event horizon leaving her consciousness to fall into a bottomless pit of anxiety and fear.

  By mid-April Jennifer hadn’t left the house for weeks. She hadn’t done anything but small amounts of eating and sleeping. Marty had offered to take her to a therapist but she couldn’t get out of bed. She thought over and over about her memories and what they meant. No therapist would allow her out on her own after hearing her talk about the future in her past.

  * * *

  After months of suffering, there was a break in the pain when one morning the phone rang and a woman she didn’t know spoke on the other end.

  “I was told you are the one taking care of Poe and Tika Ata. My name is Jenny. I wanted to speak to you, Jennifer.”

  The voice on the other end sounded eerily familiar.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am your twin sister but I was born on Nuku Hiva.”

  Jennifer swallowed. She felt dizzy. Her heart pounded then soared as the clouds opened above her. “My twin sister!” Her mind clicked a thousand times a second…she was not crazy after all.

  “Yes, I promise to explain all the details when we meet,” Jenny assured her.

  “Yes, I think you have restored my sanity, if what you say is true,” Jennifer said. “I could not understand what was happening to me because my DNA matched another person who looked like me and I did not know you existed. No one ever told me I had a twin.”

  Suddenly she remembered Jacque.

  “Depression happened to me when my parents and I left the twenty-first century to go to the thirtieth century seven years ago,” Jenny shared. “I went into a deep depression after learning of your demise in the big explosion. I had hoped to meet you. I’m so happy to learn you’re not dead! I want to come and see you, Poe, and Tika before I go back to the thirtieth century. Is that okay?”

  “I want to see you soon! When can you come?”

  “I’ll call you in a few days.”

  No one could know that much about her life in the thirtieth century if they had not been there so Jennifer felt Jenny was telling the truth. But she was not sure. The caller ID revealed nothing, just a prepaid cell phone number. She wanted to believe. She felt hopeful again about her mind and humanity.

  Jennifer felt better after learning she had a twin sister and realizing there was a logical explanation for the DNA match. Siblings. Identical twin siblings, both travelers in time. Why had this hypothesis never entered her mind?

  She wanted to talk to Marty about it but knew she might sound insane. A few days later she got an email from Alice’s brother, Albert, an editor and professor at the University of Sydney. He liked her paper and agreed to publish her work in the Australian Journal of Theoretical Physics. Her mood soared even higher. She couldn’t tell Marty about her twin so she told him the email from Alice’s brother accepting her publication was what lifted her dark mood.

  She must maintain cover or end up in the crazy house.

  * * *

  Alice came over later that day and Jennifer thanked her for contacting her brother. Although the controversy among the dissertation committee and the rejections of her work had troubled Jennifer, her real problem had been her identity crisis. She couldn’t speak of that and found that the paper was a perfect excuse.

  She asked Alice to come over so she could thank her in person, making sure Marty approved of the visit first. She hadn’t made love to anyone in two months and wanted to break her fast. They made love on the couch in the living room. Jennifer was frantic to touch and be touched.

  Marty had left the night before to visit his parents in a desperate attempt to seek a path for professional help for Jennifer. He had asked and then begged her to come but she refused. Marty’s father knew a well-known psychiatrist in Vancouver and Marty said he was asking his advice.

  But Jennifer didn’t want to talk out her problems—she craved feeling another person’s skin against hers. She kissed Alice’s breasts, playing with one nipple with her hands and sucking the other into her mouth. She lay on top of Alice, rubbing her mound against Alice’s. Alice grabbed her arms and brought Jennifer’s mouth to hers. They kissed, their tongues dueling inside each other’s mouths while Jennifer rubbed against Alice with her body.

  They stroked against each other until they both trembled and came against each other.

  Marty returned a few days later. Jennifer met him at the airport. He seemed nervous and kept looking over at Jennifer as he drove home. Jennifer knew he’d been afraid that his actions would drive her deeper into depression and she tried to put on a happy face. It seemed to work, as his shoulders relaxed during the drive.

  “I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed being with Alice but I was thinking of you the whole time. I was thinking how lucky I was to find you. I am so sorry I got sick in my head but I feel much better. One thing I am sure of; nothing you did caused my illness. I am now willing to listen to you about seeing a psychiatrist.”

  Marty lifted her hand and kissed the backs of her fingers. “Thank you for addressing this issue. I was afraid to bring up because when I tried before it seemed to make you more depressed.”

  Jennifer met with a psychiatrist, David Maxwell, the next week. He seemed patient and asked Jennifer many questions about her internal life, all easy to deflect using her cover story and details she had learned about Jenny from their phone conversations. She thought he might work out.

  * * *

  She was impatient to start planning her wedding and so let Marty hire a wedding planner named Ellen Sells. Ellen was a short, auburn-haired woman who was always moving and spoke very quickly with a New York City accent. Jennifer soon became used to her brisk manner and they worked well together to plan the wedding.

  Jennifer was euphoric on t
he big day. The children were so happy Jennifer was back. They missed her sailing, snorkeling, playing, and talking with them. The marriage meant more time with Daddy and sailing. Life had improved for the kids because the four parents were getting along.

  The wedding was at the Kahala Hotel on the first Saturday of June, and the ceremony was brief. Jennifer wanted to get the formal part over so they could spend quality time with their friends and family.

  Jennifer chose a wedding dress fashionable for the era but with little lace; her girlfriends helped her choose from among the dizzying number of styles available. Jennifer had always felt beautiful but that day she felt like a princess. She was beaming with happiness like a bright star in the heavens during a supernova.

  After Marty and Jennifer said “I do,” they kissed and the crowd cheered.

  They spent the entire evening with their guests at the reception. Then she and Marty took off with the late flight to the big island of Hawaii, where they stayed at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel on the northwest coast of the big island.

  After the honeymoon was over, Jennifer agreed to hypnosis therapy with Marty present.

  CHAPTER 32

  Mystery

  The hypnosis revealed a future world with floating cities and Syndos. These things did not make sense to Marty or Jennifer’s doctor. When asked about these strange memories after awakened from the hypnosis, Jennifer told them about the science fiction novel she was writing. Marty accepted this explanation but Jennifer was uncertain about whether the doctor was convinced. She’d known a psychiatrist could be her bane in this time when she first arrived here, yet her mental health was at risk, and she wanted to please Marty. If only she could share the truth while awake and be believed.

  Jennifer called Lacy one afternoon to catch up. “Are you free for dinner tonight?”

  “Roger that,” Lacy said. Lacy was staying at the Ilikai Hotel so they planned to meet at Sarento’s.

  Jennifer brought Marty along to dinner. They met Lacy in the Ilikai lobby. Lacy looked depressed.

  “How is your relationship with Louis?” Jennifer asked.