'The trail had gone cold,' Edwards said, walking slowly toward Josh but still looking up at the creature, 'but only after we found one last source of Hawking radiation. In Canada, actually, close to the border. Buried just ten or so meters below the surface. We couldn't fathom what we'd found at first; all we knew was that it was made of the same material as the rooms. By this point, technology had improved enough for us to study it further, at the subatomic level, and we realized that the crystalline structure was not simply atoms hewn together with the same symmetry as diamond, or any other innate crystalline structure, no—this was bonded by something else: Hawking radiation. Space-time itself.'
'I don't—I don't understand . . .' Josh mumbled.
Edwards looked fit to burst. He stopped next to Josh, admiring the creature alongside him. 'These creatures are space-time, Mr. Reed.'
'But . . . why do they come here?'
Edwards seemed unsure. 'We think the creatures normally exist in a different dimension to us, that they come here in physical form every hundred million years or so. The portals are their doorway. Why they come here though—we don't know.'
Josh had so many questions that he struggled to think of a single one clearly. 'The room,' he said, his throat tight. 'It's protected. They protect the portal.'
'That seems to be correct.'
'Then why can I go in there? Why does it take me back in time?'
Edwards folded his arms. 'I'm afraid you've caught up to speed now. This is as much as we know. These creatures seem to exit our world and enter theirs via these portals, but why you have been given access, I don't know. As to why you're brought back in time, I can only imagine that your physical being is unable to enter their dimension, and so you are simply deposited back where you first started.
'As for the creature, clearly something happened to destroy it before it could return—it must have created the portal in Manhattan but never been able to enter it. Why you can is a mystery—but a fascinating one, and one that will hopefully open new doors in this investigation.' Excited, Edwards grappled one of the smaller crates and wheeled it over to Josh. He swiped his card and opened the lid. Inside was a sphere, just like the one inside the room, only smaller—much smaller. About the size of an apple. 'Pick it up,' he said to Josh.
Josh hesitated, then picked it up. It was heavier than he expected. He turned it over in his hands, staring at it. It was warm, buzzing with latent energy. The swirling reflection seemed to swirl faster the longer he held it. 'What is it?'
'We found it dropped near the creature,' Edwards explained. 'We think it's the key to opening these portals. We call it a seed.'
Josh stared into the swirling chrome of the seed. It was hypnotic, calming to look at. It absorbed his thought, drew it in, emptying his mind. In its place came a thread, weaving from the seed, filling his mind with new images, new thoughts.
The seed, it was the answer. This realization came like a whisper heard, not an idea imagined. It willed him to return it to the portal. The comfort he felt in that room, the familiarity, it was washing over him. He wanted to be back there, this time with the seed. It felt right.
'Mr. Reed?'
Josh looked at Edwards, then back at the seed. It was inert. 'Yes?'
'Are you okay? You don't appear to be listening.'
Josh put the seed back down. 'Yes, I'm fine. Just . . . just thinking.'
'Well, okay, but I need you to pay attention. This is very important.'
Josh nodded. 'Okay, sorry. I'm listening.'
Edwards continued to talk about his theories as to how the portal worked and how the seed held the Hawking radiation needed to create one. He was obviously enamored with this technology, in his element talking about it, despite knowing so little of its origin. This was his muse—this was what he would stop at nothing to protect. Twenty years, he'd said, dedicated to finding this answer, and here it was, tantalizingly close.
Yet Josh couldn't help but cling onto the decaying warmth the seed had given him. He'd been chosen. Why, he did not know, but he had. The creature, lifeless, never fulfilled its charge, never returned back to the portal, and it was never closed. The other rooms, the other portals, they had all been closed, leaving nothing but residue. The room below Manhattan, it was a danger, and he'd seen it. The seed was the answer. It had to be returned to the portal. He had to close it down.
'I've got something else I'd like to show you,' Edwards said, grabbing Josh's attention again. 'Follow me.' He headed away, toward the service elevator, without looking back. Josh stayed planted for a moment, processing everything he'd just taken in. He realized why he couldn't trust Edwards: putting this mission before three marriages left him with nothing else to fall back to. It was his everything. Whatever decisions he'd make, he'd make for himself, and for no one else. To him, there was no one else.
Josh took a breath. 'Wait up,' he called out after Edwards, jogging to catch up with him.
Chapter 23
Toward the back of the large storage room—where the freight elevator was—another smaller elevator awaited. They boarded. This elevator only had one other stop: down. The carpet pile and shiny buttons still looked like new; this elevator rarely got used. The doors closed and they descended.
'Few people have ever been to this place, seen what you've seen,' Edwards said. 'And even fewer have been where we're going next.'
Josh could still feel the weight of the seed in his hand. It had been alive, like the sphere in the room was, and it had spoken to him. Should he tell Edwards? He wasn't sure. He would wait until he'd seen whatever else it was that Edwards wanted to show him. He was only now starting to come to terms with the fact that what he'd just seen, by all definitions, was an alien. Its crystalline, simplistic form, its great, lumbering shape—it wasn't what he would have expected, had he been asked to guess. He wasn't entirely sure he believed it at all, despite everything that had happened to him. Looking at Edwards, he asked, 'Why are you showing all of this to me?'
'When you entered that room, Josh, you did more than discover the next step in a journey to finding out how these portals work—you became the next step. You are the next step.'
At this, Josh frowned. The next step? It sounded like Edwards had something specifically in mind for him. Before he had a chance to say anything, the elevator came to a stop, and after more card swiping and retinal scanning, the doors opened.
'Follow me,' Edwards said, leading the way. The corridor was short, clean and white, filtering them through an airlock where they walked over a sticky pad and were blasted with gas.
'What is this place?' Josh asked as they entered a larger white room filled with three rows of unattended desks, covered in scientific equipment.
'This is our lab,' Edwards said, 'where we tested all of our theories. The group was small, as you can imagine, but we learned a hell of a lot even from a few samples.'
'Where is everybody?'
'You'll soon see, Mr. Reed. But for now, let me show you something.'
The room put Josh in mind of his school science labs, but more intense and better equipped. The equipment he did recognize—microscopes, test tubes, computers—was dwarfed by that which he did not, mainly large, creamy white boxes with lights and switches that were, at present, all off. This room seemed like it had been untouched for years, presumably after every avenue of research had been exhausted.
Edwards stopped in front of a small white refrigerator. He opened it and pulled out a tray. 'This is where we learned how to make it.'
'Make what?' Josh said, trying to get a look.
Edwards placed the tray down on a desk and lifted off the thin cover hiding its contents. 'The crystalline material. We call it Hawkene.'
There it was, just as Josh remembered it, shimmering and uneven. It was laid out in shards, spaced equally apart. Under the bright lights of the lab it had a translucent quality, an iridescence glowing beneath the surface.
'Touch it,' Edwards said, gesturing to Josh. Josh hesitated,
wondering why Edwards had such an interest in him holding and touching everything. Edwards, having picked up on Josh's mistrust, put a finger on a shard himself. 'See?' he said, the material beneath his finger remaining as it was. 'Nothing.'
Still hesitant, Josh reached out to touch the material. Fingertips tingling with apprehension, he stroked the surface lightly. To his surprise, the iridescence glowed, then faded, tracing the path he had laid out with his fingers. He pulled away, withdrawing his hand to his chest as though he'd been shocked, even though he had felt none of it.
'Interesting . . .' Edwards said, watching the iridescence fade.
'What just happened?' Josh asked. For the first time, he felt vulnerable, properly vulnerable, as though Edwards was steering him through a prescribed journey to a destination unknown.
'Relax,' Edwards said. 'Everything's fine. I've seen this before.'
Josh wasn't reassured. Then Edwards pushed two of the shards together.
'Touch them both.'
Again hesitant, Josh reached out and put a finger on each shard. They both glowed, and he kept his nerve, watching as the glow increased. Edwards was fascinated.
'Keep still for a moment,' he said, watching the shards shimmer. The two pieces, almost imperceptibly at first, began to knit together, binding the surfaces into one.
Josh, heart thumping, pulled away, and the glow receded. 'What happened?' he said, breath short.
'The material is intelligent,' Edwards said. 'It recognizes you. It knows you.' Evidently, he was very pleased with this. Before Josh could ask any more questions, Edwards pulled out his cell, dialed and held it to his ear. 'Is everything ready? Good. We'll be there soon.' He hung up.
'What's ready?' Josh asked.
'You see,' he said, putting the tray of Hawkene back in the refrigerator and shutting the door, 'we haven't only been relying on what we've found—we've been trying to take steps forward with the technology ourselves. Time, Mr. Reed—time. Imagine having the ability to control it, bend it to your will. That's a power with endless, unimaginable possibilities. Stopping wars, genocide, disasters—all suffering could be a thing of the past—quite literally.'
'What have you done?' Josh asked uneasily.
'We've made our own room, Mr. Reed, with the Hawkene. The seed, we know it creates a portal, but we don't know how. We've tried, but with no success. It has a protective energy, like the room—'
'What do you mean? You let me touch one! I could have died!'
Edwards grabbed Josh by the shoulders, his excitement taking over. 'And you were fine! Like the room, Mr. Reed, you were fine. That's how I knew. When you went in that room, I knew. Somehow, you've been allowed access, and I think that means you'll be able to go into our new room and create a new portal . . .!'
Josh pulled away, stunned. 'But—but we don't have time . . . we need to close the portal in Manhattan, before—'
'Josh,' Edwards interrupted. 'Josh. Please. Don't you see? This is the discovery not just of a lifetime, but of humanity. If we close that portal, then what? We could be throwing away everything, shutting it all down. The rooms—they'll end up like the ones we found in Egypt, in Albania—dead. I can't let that happen. I won't let that happen.'
In Edwards's eyes, Josh could see that obsession, that same look his wives had probably seen and been driven away by. He'd seemed human before, but when he was like this, he was more animal.
'People die,' Josh said quietly. 'Manhattan becomes a wasteland. Who knows how far it goes.' He paused, wondering if he should say what he was going to say next. 'The seed, it—it spoke to me. I need to take it to the portal, close it down. That's why I've been chosen. The portal shouldn't be open, not anymore. It's not safe for us, or for them. They want me to close it.' The realization came as he spoke it.
Edwards, eyes still wide, looked disappointed. 'I see. Well—that makes sense.' He sighed, looking at his feet, then back at Josh, eyes searching. 'But please be reasonable. There's so much to learn here, so much good we can do. It won't take long, I promise. Our room, it's safe. We can seal it up. All we need is for you to take the seed in, and then we can go to Manhattan, close the portal. Then everything will be safe. But we can't do that first, we can't. All this—it would have been for nothing.'
'Can't you seal the room in Manhattan?'
Edwards shook his head. 'Hawkene takes too long to make. We don't have enough time.'
Josh was stuck. The wilderness of Manhattan played behind his eyes, the hollow shell of a city that had been home to millions of lives. Where had they gone? Where were Georgie and Joseph? Had they even survived? Yet he could sympathize with Edwards's position, twenty years of work and research that built to this final moment. The power of time travel. The future of humanity. Josh held it in his hands. 'How long will it take?'
'We can be there in thirty minutes. We'll be back in Manhattan in ninety at the most.'
That should be enough time. 'Okay,' Josh said warily. 'I'll do it.'
'Excellent. Then we must leave immediately.'
'I want to speak to Georgie first.'
Edwards sighed, thinking. 'Fine. But you must be quick.'
'I will. And I want you to promise me that whatever happens, she and Joseph will be kept safe.'
'So long as we reach a mutual satisfaction, you have my word.'
Josh hesitated. It was the best offer he was going to get. Begrudgingly, he agreed. 'Okay then.'
They retraced their steps back into the upper portion of the building, mingling once again with agents working their day-to-day jobs, all of them most likely unaware of the significance of what had been going on below for the past twenty years. If Josh were to blurt it out now, would any of them believe him? He still didn't quite believe it himself. A word he didn't want to think of—because of the absurdity of it—jumped into his head: aliens. Was that hulking obelisk really an . . . an alien? A life force from a layer of the universe they could neither see nor occupy themselves? It was an elaborate story, outrageous in fact, but somehow Josh had a sense that it was all true, all real.
And if it was all real, then so was the portal, and the seed. And the seed had told him that he needed to go back into that room and shut everything down. But if he did, what would happen to him? Would it be like nothing had ever happened? Or would he emerge decades into the future, into a world he didn't recognize?
'You've got five minutes,' Edwards said, parting the guards outside the room. 'Then we have to go.'
'Okay, five minutes,' Josh said, walking through the open door and stepping in. The door was closed behind him, leaving him alone with Georgie, who was waking up, and Joseph, who was still asleep.
'Is everything okay?' Georgie slurred, still half-asleep.
Josh didn't answer immediately. He wasn't sure how. 'Fine,' he said eventually. 'Listen, I've got to go now—'
'Go where?' Georgie said, fully awake in an instant.
'I don't know. They haven't told me. But they need my help.'
'I thought they needed your help here?'
Josh sat down next to her and held her hand. 'They had to show me some things here first, so I knew what I needed to do.'
'Show you? What did they show you?'
'I can't say.'
Georgie looked him deep in the eyes. 'Is everything okay?'
'We'll be fine. I've made them promise to look after you.'
'And what about you? What's going to happen to you?'
Josh stiffened. He had to look away. 'I—I don't know exactly just yet.' Heat was building up behind his eyes. 'I'm sure I'll be fine.'
'You promise?'
Josh could feel Georgie looking at him, but he couldn't turn to face her. 'I'll do my best.'
'And I'll be waiting for you, you understand? You need to come back, for me and for Joseph.'
Josh's eyes began to blur. He blinked them clear, sniffing, trying not to think about when—or if—he'd see them again. 'Okay,' he said. 'I will.' He squeezed her hand and then stood. 'I have to go n
ow,' he said, taking a last look at them both. 'They may need to take you somewhere safe, so go with them, okay?'
'And you'll meet us there?' Georgie asked, trying to sound optimistic.
'I'll meet you there,' Josh whispered through a tightening throat. He went to leave, then stopped. 'I'm sorry,' he said.
Georgie, smiling weakly, shook her head. 'It's okay. You've got to help them. I understand.'
'No, not that. I've been a bad husband, a bad father, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left you in Niagara, I'm sorry I left you for my job, I'm sorry—'
'It's okay,' Georgie said. She was crying now, her smile completely broken. 'We can only change what's in front of us.'
'And I want to,' Josh said.
'Then I'll be waiting.'
The door opened, and the guard beckoned Josh to leave. He looked at Georgie and Joseph one last time before he left. 'Goodbye,' he said.
'Goodbye,' Georgie replied.
Chapter 24
Josh, Edwards and the two agents left the building in a rush, bundling through the security checks with little more than a wave. The metal detector went off as Josh went through it, but Edwards just kept going, shouting at the guard there to shut the sound off. Josh followed on without a word. He had made it out of the building, and the cool early evening air under a slowly purpling sky was as soothing as it was going to get.
'Over here, sir,' an agent they met outside directed them.
'Is the seed on board?' Edwards asked him.
'Yes, sir.'
Edwards nodded, pleased. They followed the agent on to the helipad and boarded the helicopter. Their agent escort left them there, leaning into the gust blowing down from the idling blades. Within the helicopter, they took a seat on the rear bench and donned their headsets.
The lights switched off and the cabin went dark, before a red light flicked on overhead. Shadows jumped and loomed, stretching into a distorted reality of the interior. The slapping of the blades built to a solid thump, the helicopter shaking then leaning forward as it pulled them into the air. Once they'd gained altitude, the thumping receded enough for Edwards to talk.
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