Touchstone (Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  “What’s the read, Kelly?” Nordhausen was at the history console now, but Kelly was looking over his shoulder at another bank of equipment. “Is the net back up?” Nordhausen persisted, more enthusiastic now. “Is this a variance report coming in?”

  “Quiet!” Kelly was watching the other workstation now. “Paul?” He looked for Paul in the room, finding him with worried eyes.

  “I see it,” said Paul. “Let’s get power back up beyond standby mode.”

  “Right,” said Kelly, moving quickly past the professor to another console across the room.

  Maeve stood in silence, watching as the two men went to work with a feverish urgency. She knew what was happening, being familiar enough with the equipment from her stint with Kelly on the initial operations.

  “Now what in blazes is going on here?” Nordhausen was getting angry.

  “Be quiet, Robert,” said Maeve. “Can’t you see what’s going on? That’s the retraction module.” Maeve’s revelation did little to dispel the professor’s confusion.

  “The retraction module? Is it still operating? We’ve been here for over an hour now. I haven’t even had time to get out of these clothes. Turn the damn thing off, Paul, we’ve got to check on this Golem alert.”

  Kelly gave the professor a withering look. Then he put his hands on his hips and explained. “Look Robert, there is no Golem alert. I told you—the net is down. It’s not responding. There’s nothing out there, at least not that I can reach. And this—“ He pointed to the workstation where Paul was making quick adjustments to the quantum infusion chamber. “This is the retraction module, just like Maeve said. So sit down and be quiet. We’ve got to focus now.”

  Robert was dumbfounded. He took a deep breath and recovered a bit of his composure. “I know very well that’s the retraction module. Why don’t we just turn it off and be done with it? If the net is down then we’ve got to start thinking on our own. What about the stone?”

  The professor felt two hands grip hard on his shoulders, pushing down firmly. He found himself plopped into a swivel chair and twisted about to see Maeve frowning at him again.

  “Quiet, Robert,” she said in a low voice. “They’ve got to be sure the system timing is balanced now, understand?”

  “But—“ The flare in Maeve’s eyes silenced him, and she spoke again, the words striking Nordhausen like a hammer.

  ”Someone is coming through the Arch.”

  23

  All eyes turned to the far end of the lab complex where a massive circular door gleamed in the cool light of the overhead neon. It was the portal that would lead to the access tunnel of the Arch. Far below the lab, the on-site generators were thrumming away to provide the enormous power required for the operation. Kelly was monitoring the buildup, watching as the power indicator swept through 80% on its way to maximum surge. It seemed sluggish to him, and he was concerned. As if he could read his friend’s thoughts, Paul looked over his shoulder and tossed him a question.

  “How are we on power?”

  “Eighty-seven percent, and building. But it’s not ramping up like it should. I think we may have lost our connection to the outside power grid.” He toggled a bank of switches and nodded his head. “Yup, nothing coming in from PG&E.”

  “Damn storm has the whole Bay Area down,” put in Nordhausen, who looked at Maeve to see if he was about to suffer any reprisal for breaking silence. She let the remark pass, giving him a sideward glance, her attention primarily focused on Kelly.

  “We’re on internal power now,” said Kelly. “Fuel looks good, at least for the next several hours. How’s the particle infusion?”

  “I’ve got enough left for a retraction, but…”

  The question that was in everyone’s mind was left unspoken. Who was coming through the Arch? How were they shifting in? Where were they coming from?

  “Robert…” Paul looked away from the infusion chamber. “Make yourself useful. You and Maeve will have to form our welcoming committee. I have no idea what to expect, but could the two of you get down to the Arch?”

  “But what if it’s the Assassins?” The professor was the first to vocalize the obvious fear. “Do you expect me to fend them off at the elevator? We don’t even have any weapons here.”

  “Relax,” said Maeve. “I’ll take my parasol.” She was pulling him up from the chair and heading for the titanium door. Kelly had toggled the breaching command, and the massive door was swinging open on its oiled metal hinges.

  “Come along, Robert. We’ve got to get through before it closes.”

  “The intercom is open,” Kelly shouted after them. “Be careful! Damn,” he said to Paul, “I wish we had installed cameras. I don’t like the idea of someone dropping in unannounced like this. Who could it be?”

  “God only knows,” said Paul. “One side or the other. But whoever it is, they seem to want to talk something over with the Founders.”

  “Or blow the Founders to pieces,” Kelly suggested. “What if Robert is right and the Assassins come through to take us all out? What if there really was a Transformation and the world we’re living in now has no Internet—at least not one that functions as we might expect it. I was pinging all over the world moments ago, looking for my Golems. That’s one hell of a way to shout ‘here I am ‘ on the network, if there is one.”

  Paul smiled. “You’re suggesting the Islamic Thought Police have a line on our location and coming in to take us down?”

  “Well, we didn’t initiate the breach, Paul. I have no base number as a reference. Someone clearly knows our coordinates—the exact temporal and spatial coordinates of the Arch.”

  “Forget the murder scenario,” said Paul. “The fact that the Arch is their focal target is good evidence that they intend no harm. As you can see, their arrival is not exactly a secret. I could reverse polarity now and stop the breaching sequence altogether if I wanted. They have to know that as well. And to answer your question, they are using the Arch because we’re in a Nexus Point. You can’t run a breach into a Nexus without assistance at the other end. I think they sent through their breaching pulse to give us a little nudge and ask for some help. How’s the power look now?”

  “Ninety-four percent. It’s sluggish. I don’t know if the on-site turbines can give us a hundred percent, and we have no reserve if anything should fail.”

  “When it hits ninety-five I’ll start the infusion.”

  “Go!” said Kelly, pointing with his finger.

  Paul activated the retraction module, feeding in the precious quantum fuel and hoping the equipment would hold together.”

  ~

  “This is ridiculous!” said Nordhausen as the elevator opened on the bottom floor of the Arch bay. “Look at us… we’re still dressed up in costume. If anyone comes through they’ll immediately think they’ve got the wrong time.”

  “Nonsense,” said Maeve. “Since this is the earliest functional Arch in any Meridian, they can’t be coming from the past. That means they’re from the future. They’ve probably had decades to research this,” she concluded.

  “It’s creepy,” said Nordhausen. “I don’t like the idea of someone knowing everything I’m likely to do for the remainder of my life, and making casual visits to chat like this… unless they intend something more. Damn, I wish I had my walking stick.”

  They were beyond the final door now, the last barrier between the world they knew and the heart of the Arch corridor where an artificial singularity was spinning out in a mad dance of quantum particles, a strange temporal waltz. The sound of the generators was pounding in the confined space, and the temperature was noticeably cold. But the most obvious sign that the breach was commencing was the cavalcade of lights, a whirlwind of auroras directly in front of them. The radiance and hue of the colors was awesome, and Robert found himself gaping at the display as he recalled the images he had seen when he first opened his eyes in the Arch flow.

  The thick yellow line on the concrete floor ahead was the only th
ing between them and the hole that was now opening in infinity. Robert seemed to press toward it with an eagerness that seemed compelling. Maeve hung back, reaching to grab hold of the professor’s arm to restrain his forward movement.

  “Not too close,” she warned. “This is a retraction. We’ve never tested for this scenario, and I have no idea what would happen if someone was in the Arch when the breach actually opened. Stay well back from the event line.”

  Robert nodded, but his face was alight with wonder and expectation. Whatever fear he had conjured up, of sword wielding Arab Assassins bursting through the Arch on a death mission, it had evaporated now that he was in the presence of the incredible spectacle before him.

  The temperature dropped precipitously, and there came a low growling sound, like a train passing, or again a tornado as it swept by on a raging unseen tempest. Then a hazy fog, thick and cold, and tinged with neon blue, began to materialize before them in the center of the Arch. Robert strained to see as the mist grew in density, resolving to the unmistakable shape of a man, though he remained obscured by the fog. There came a long howling sound, wolf like and hungry, as if pack of rabid dogs were on the prowl. Through the torrent of light and sound, they could hear the voice of Kelly on the intercom, distant and tinny.

  “Breach closing… Is everyone alright down there?” His voice had a strange hollow echo to it, as though it was coming from a thousand miles away, barely discernable in the noise of the corridor.

  A man strode forward, the cold mist evaporating around him in a crackle of blue light. He was heavy set, and Robert saw that he wore a long gray cape, and black floppy headpiece. He looked at Maeve, and they shared a flash of recognition as the man stepped toward them with a smile on his broad, fleshy face.

  It was LeGrand.

  “We meet again!” he said with enthusiasm.

  He seemed a bit pale, clearly shaken, yet recovering well considering the strange disorientation and nausea that could accompany a time shift. Maeve raised her eyebrows, her suspicions immediately aroused, but civility prevailed, and she was the first to reach out and take the visitor’s arm, steadying him as he swayed in momentary spell of dizziness. Robert moved to assist her, and together they helped LeGrand away from the event line and back through the massive titanium door behind them. A moment later it closed with a sibilant hiss.

  “Vapor barrier,” said Nordhausen. “We have slightly negative pressure in the Arch, at least relative to that in the main lab complex. Just a precaution. But my word, LeGrand, whatever are you doing here? How could you shift here from Rosetta? Why, not an hour ago you were gaping at the stone and no doubt wondering how the other side pulled off that little coup.”

  “That’s an understatement,” said LeGrand. “It was no small matter. Who knows how they managed it, but Lord save us, there’s been a transformation — a grand transformation. It’s the very thing we live in fear of each and every day of our lives. The guardians spin out one scenario after another, the research takes years, but we are quite good at it now. The agents stand their watch on all the key milieus, waiting for new orders to come in at any time. It seems I have been given mine.”

  “You mean to say you were pulled out and then immediately sent on a new mission?”

  “Quite…” LeGrand ran the back of his thick hand over his brow, clearly distressed.

  “Come on, Robert. Let’s walk him to the elevator and get up to the lab where it’s more comfortable.” Even as they started, something seemed to come to LeGrand and he looked from one to the other with an expression of great urgency.

  “They must keep the Arch spinning,” he said quickly. “Don’t shut anything down. Can they hear me?” He looked around as they entered the elevator, and Maeve toggled the intercom button as the doors closed.

  “Kelly?” She had a worried expression on her face. “Are you there?”

  “Of course I’m here,” came the reply through the overhead speaker, but it had a strange resonance to it, as if the transmission was suffering interference, possibly from the Arch.

  Maeve let out a long breath. “Good then… We have a guest, and we’re coming up now. All is well here. We’ll be there in a minute or two.”

  “Roger that… Roger, Roger…”

  She could not tell if Kelly was just repeating the phrase or if there was a feedback loop in the system. LeGrand looked up at the speaker, his eyes narrowing with concern.

  “Dissonance,” said LeGrand. “They must keep the Nexus open. Tell them not to reduce the power. The Arch must keep spinning.”

  “He hears you,” Maeve assured him. “But what was that you said? Dissonance? What do you mean?”

  “No time to explain,” said LeGrand, smiling at the irony of his statement. “Don’t you understand? There’s been a grand transformation. Everything has changed… everything. The only stable wells in the flow of time are the Nexus Points that were open at the instant the Heisenberg Wave was generated. We’re in one now, and you must do everything possible to preserve it against the flow. Otherwise…”

  He gave them a long look, his eyes reflecting both fear and sorrow as he spoke. “Otherwise we lose our last hope,” he said darkly. “Don’t you see? We’re an island now, in a raging stream of catastrophe and chaos. And time is running out.”

  24

  The visitor was still eyeing the facility like a patron touring a museum.

  “The original site,” he had said when he entered. “The Founders… All four together at once! This is more than any man could have hoped for in a lifetime. I am truly honored.”

  Paul and Kelly were quite surprised when they saw Robert and Maeve escorting the man into the lab. Now they were gathered about the conference table in a room just off the main lab complex. Robert made the introductions, while Maeve watched with a sullen expression on her face. The professor recalled the heat of that last discussion with LeGrand, and he hoped the meeting would not soon disintegrate into a shouting match.

  “So,” he concluded. “You’ve come with news about this transformation. It was the stone, wasn’t it. You see—I told you the Rosetta Stone was a crucial touchstone in the record of time. Without it we lose our knowledge of 5000 years of human history.”

  “I’m afraid we lose a good deal more than that,” LeGrand said darkly. “In fact, we lose everything. The whole summation of our culture and civilization is swept away, lost, forgotten. Only the barest fragments remain, like the monuments of Egypt were pale reflections of that culture in our time.”

  “Come now,” said Nordhausen, “it can’t be all that bad. Surely we lose our understanding of the past, but how does the loss of the stone bear upon our future?”

  “You know quite well how, professor.” LeGrand’s grey eyes flashed as he spoke. “It was you who started this whole notion of the stone being an essential element for communication. Why, you were about to tell me all about it when we first met in Egypt—about Rasil, the Messenger; about the scroll you found in his pack.”

  “You knew about that?”

  “Not the details. Research had to brief me just now, before I was sent back.” He looked at the clock on the opposite wall, noting the steady forward progression of the second hand. The sight of it seemed to renew his agitation. “You’ve kept the Arch spinning, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Paul, “but we’re on internal generators. The connection to our outside power reserve appears to be severed. We’ve only a few hours fuel, I’m afraid.”

  LeGrand’s eyes widened. “You’ve lost more than the connection to your local power company,” he said quickly.

  “Yes,” said Robert. “We tried the radio, but the storm is playing havoc with the signal.”

  “Storm?”

  “We were up in the observation dome a moment ago,” said Paul.

  “Yes,” Robert put in. “The whole city was shrouded in darkness. There was a freak storm raging—really quite unusual. In fact, I meant to go out and have a look.”

  “No!” Le
Grand nearly shouted, extending an arm to ward off some unseen evil. “You mustn’t leave the safety of the Nexus—none of you may leave. Don’t you understand? There’s been a transformation, and the whole of the world you knew—“

  “Is gone,” Paul finished flatly. They all looked at him. “You weren’t looking at a storm, Robert. That was the frontier of annihilation—just a thin border zone at the periphery of our Nexus Point. Beyond it the world outside is likely to be very different from anything in our experience.”

  “Yes,” said LeGrand. “Beyond the Nexus is the chaos of transformation. The world you knew is gone—all of it. The Nexus is a bubble in the stream. There are only three left that we know of, and this is one of them. The other two exist in the future, at our main operations center, such as it remains, and one more auxiliary site that we keep very well hidden. They were the only operations we happened to have going when the Heisenberg Wave struck, and I don’t know how much longer they will remain active. It was mere chance that I was scheduled for retraction, you see. I usually dally about a day or so after the stone is discovered—at least I did that on my first two missions to Rosetta. This time I told the messenger that I wanted to be pulled out as soon as possible. Fate would have it that my retraction saw one of our own Arch systems running at the time of the transformation. They sent me here to you because I was one of the very few travelers who were protected by a Nexus when the alarm came in. ”

  “Only three systems left?” Nordhausen scratched his head. “I don’t understand. Why don’t your associates simply turn on the rest. Surely you must have others.”

  “Once…” LeGrand seemed to sag with the admission. “We had twenty operational Arch complexes, but none of those sites exist now.”

  Maeve could no longer restrain herself. “Good riddance to the lot of them! You see what your meddling has achieved? Are you telling me the world outside this complex is gone as well? Are you saying my Subaru isn’t parked in the lot outside; that I can’t make a stop at Peet’s on the way home this evening; that there’s no city out there at all?”