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.
Bu
t 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 notebooks 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.
Then she looked at the three founders of this incredible place. They all sat gazing at her.
“In other words,” Belle said, “to work on a life’s dream project, you are offering me all the money I will ever need, all the technology, and basic immortality.”
All three nodded.
Belle laughed, shaking her head. “You drive a hard bargain, but I think I’ll take the job.”
All three of the founders and Zane clapped and Zane leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
June 9th, 2020
Boise, Idaho
ZANE HAD NEVER been so shocked in all his life to learn that the founders knew he had been in Step One time for all these years. He supposed it shouldn’t have surprised him, since he had had to come back through the Step Two room, and then go out a secret tunnel into the eastern mansion and then out. Clearly they had security on that room, as they should.
He still sat with the three founders and Belle in the huge cavern called The Living Room. He had almost finished his hot chocolate and the chill was gone that he had felt from the trip back to 1885.
And Belle had accepted the job they had offered her.
Now they had mentioned they wanted him for an exploration into a cavern. He now had managed to get his shocked mind back thinking and he had a few questions because he had a hunch which cavern they were talking about. And no one but the founders even knew where it was.
“If I may,” Zane asked, “Are you four all established in future stages as well?”
“All founders of the institute have been established in Stage Four,” Duster said. “But we are all working and living here in Stage One.”
“I can’t imagine we will ever work or live in any other stage,” Bonnie said. “I love jumping back to the past from here far too much.”
The other two nodded to that.
“And there are fourteen founders?” Zane asked.
“There are,” Dawn said. “Seven couples. You will eventually meet all of them.”
Duster leaned forward, a very serious look on his face. “I have another surprise for both of you.”
“Damn, not sure how much more my poor brain can handle in surprises,” Belle said.
&nbs
p; Zane laughed and glanced at Belle. “I’m game if you are.”
She smiled. “Sure, just been offered the dream job, unlimited money, and immortality. What’s one more thing on the pile?”
Everyone laughed, then Duster said, “We want you both to join the founders.”
Zane rocked back and sat staring at Duster.
“Not at all sure what that means,” Belle said.
“With you doing the genetics project,” Dawn said to Belle, “and Zane doing what we hope he will help us with, we are going to need to take you both to the crystal cavern.”
“When I left Step Two, there were only fourteen founders,” Zane said.
“And when you return,” Dawn said, “common knowledge will be that there are sixteen.”
“You’ll understand how that all works later,” Duster said. “No point in getting sidetracked on this.”
“So what does being a founder mean?” Belle asked.
“It means that eventually we will establish you in Stage Four so nothing that happens here or even hundreds of years in the future can kill you,” Duster said.
“And it means that you will be one of only sixteen people who know where the crystal cavern is at,” Dawn said.
“And it means that you will sit in with the founders meetings as we all try to set the course of this institute into the future.”
“Holy shit,” Zane said, stunned beyond words. This was only his second trip back into the past from Step Two.
He felt young, a baby.
Zane sat forward, staring at Duster. Then he pointed to Belle. “One short trip from here into the past.”
Then Zane pointed to his own chest. “Only two trips back from Step Two and the short trip back earlier into the past. So why the two of us? We are babies compared to all of you.”
Duster pointed off at the crystal door. “In two hours in there, at two minutes and fifteen seconds a trip, and living about thirty years in the past per trip, you could live over a thousand years. That’s in two hours.”
Zane nodded and Belle sort of gasped. He had been wrapping his mind around the realities of this kind of travel now for years here, knowing that in Stage Two, he would only be gone a few minutes.
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