Moonliner: No Stone Unturned

by Hanzel, Donald

  “That doesn’t discard the possibility that it’s someone in the present receiving your messages and toying with you,” Lennox adds.

  “To the point of engraving a metal plate?” Cedric asks.

  “An extreme reaction to a seemingly extreme request,” Lennox replies.

  “Plus, I’m sure I could still see an indentation in the soil where the coin was. The plate was directly under it, a little deeper down, encased in a plastic box. Whoever this person is, he or she would have had to have gone to extreme lengths to make that box appear to be buried before the coin was discovered.”

  “This is insane. I’m still having a hard time really believing it. You’re saying that the message I sent from Moondock went back in time and was received by this guy over half a century ago. Then he left this plate under a stone in the park for you to find,” Lennox recaps to get the story straight.

  “Yes,” Cedric responds. “That seems to best explain what happened. Look, I had my receivers on and the messages were directed right at them, only accelerated. I didn’t receive them, either of them and I should have, easily. They went somewhere.”

  “So,” Lennox interjects; “you mean to tell me that you’ve established communication with some guy in another time. You’re sending messages back and forth through time. That can’t be real.”

  “You’re in on it too,” Cedric reminds him. “You sent the second one.”

  A seagull lands at the base of the clubhouse flagpole, looking for a bite. Lennox and Cedric lean back on the bench and stare off into nowhere, trying to come to grips with the facts and the artifacts in front of them. The sun climbs a little higher but neither of them seem to notice. They’re both enjoying the endlessly fascinating free-play of speculative imagination, and the vast potential therein. There’s a look of raw joy on both of their faces, stemming from a new booster shot of confidence they’d both received with the metal plate, and both needed.

  After a few minutes of silence, the two look at each other and start to laugh, hard. It goes on for a solid minute, bringing tears to Lennox’s eyes, then it fades. It was a refreshing laugh, like the kind they used to bust as college freshmen, like they’d just pulled something off.

  The profound reality of their circumstance is quite sobering, however. Like with any true discovery, more questions are raised than answered, and questions are hitting Lennox and Cedric left and right.

  “They received the messages in Seattle,” Lennox mentions; “how can that be? Did you send them to Seattle?” he asks.

  “No, my transmissions were narrowly aimed at Vancouver’s relay station. Remember, these are laser beams. I can’t explain why he would pick them up in Seattle, but he has both times.”

  “I wonder why they didn’t leave their last names,” Lennox says.

  “They’re smart not to,” Cedric answers.

  “Do you think they’re still alive?” Lennox asks.

  “I don’t know,” Cedric answers. “If so, they’re no spring chickens.”

  “You could probably figure out who they are if you pull their names from the registry for the tradeshow they attended,” Lennox points out.

  “The show’s member roster didn’t make any historical databases, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there somewhere in data land,” Cedric responds. “Finding them is not my priority at this point. It could be dangerous. Besides, I never gave them my name. Maybe the less we know of each other the better.”

  “So what is your priority then?” Lennox asks.

  “Connecting the dots, and somehow proving this is real,” Cedric answers.

  “For your thesis?” Lennox asks.

  “No, for me now,” Cedric answers; “this one’s all for me.”

  Cedric is now back on his game. He’s found a pragmatic connection between his work, the universe, and time. The stars are aligning for him. The magnitude of his discovery is immeasurable and could potentially redirect the course of human history. That much he understands. Where it’s going, he has no clue.

  The two men eventually golf, though silently. Both are mentally preoccupied with the time capsule. Neither seems to be focused on golf, but they have a good time just the same. They golf at an inner city pitch n’ putt. Though a beautiful eighteen hole golf course, the longest hole is only a hundred and twenty yards from the tee, with most being around only sixty or seventy yards. You never need a driver, and if you play by official pitch n’ putt rules, you can only use two clubs, one of which must be a putter. Cedric and Lennox play a bent version of the official game, using only three clubs each. They can get competitive at times, but typically don’t. They golf mostly to relax.

  Cedric stands on the green of the fourth hole, watching Lennox line up in a deep sand trap to take a tough shot. Cedric’s ball is laying in a much better spot, just about three yards from the pin.

  “It’s like standing in a crater,” Lennox yells as he rocks back and forth on his feet a little for balance. The sand trap is deep and he has dropped out of Cedric’s sight.

  “You would know,” Cedric yells back.

  “You know I’ve still never been to the surface. So I wouldn’t really know,” Lennox replies.

  “No, I knew that,” Cedric says laughing; “I was referring to the massive hole your life is in,” he adds, taking a pot shot at Lennox.

  Lennox bats his eyes and takes the stroke. From the green Cedric sees only sand fly, no ball. Moments later, sand flies again. Only this time a ball pops over the hilly terrain and rolls onto the green. It comes to rest on the opposite side of the hole as Cedric’s, but equidistant from the pin.

  Lennox gives Cedric a little go ahead wave, letting him know that it’s okay to take his shot. Cedric lines up to shoot, steps back and takes a few soft practice putts, then lines up again with the ball. He putts, softly leaving the ball on the rim of the hole, looking as though it may drop. It doesn’t. Cedric taps it into the hole.

  “What if instead of him, it’s to her?” he asks as he bends to fetch his ball from the hole.

  “To whom?” Lennox inquires.

  “To Nikki,” Cedric answers; “what if I were to send a message, telling her not to get on that shuttle?”

  Lennox lines up to putt. Cedric awaits his feedback to his hypothetical. He gets none. Lennox’s putt is well off its mark, leaving the ball about where Cedric’s was. It’s unlike him to be that off. He lines up again, takes a little longer look at it, then buries the putt like a professional. He’s ignoring Cedric, hoping his idea to contact Nikki will fade like some of his more fleeting ones. Lennox was the one who encouraged Cedric to turn the stone, twice. He saw it as therapeutic for Cedric, as a way of getting over his loss. Now he’s worried that he may be taking things a little too far.

  Cedric doesn’t give up on the idea.

  “If I just had some point in time when she was linked, maybe I could hone in on her location somehow,” he tells Lennox, who now feels compelled to jump into the conversation.

  “Even if you could find a time when she was linked, she’d have to also be listening to some kind of receiver. Furthermore, you would need to know the frequency to which it is tuned,” Lennox lays out in an argument, surprising Cedric with his insight. “And how would you calculate the place, direction, time, strength, and so on of the transmission?”

  “I could calibrate the time and distance differentials between the first experiment that worked that day in my apartment, and the lunar transmissions to arrive at some numerical point, then program the transmission to pin this point,” Cedric replies.

  “It sounds like a really long shot,” Lennox says straight up. “Some problems can’t be solved through scientific method. Time will heal your pain. In time, you’ll move onto other things, other women.”

  “You’re right,” Cedric answers; “you’re completely right. That’s why I wanna do this. I don’t want to move on, or to let go, or give in to the perpetual perish of time. I want something outside of time; something beyond time, or suspe
nded in it. She’s out there, as are we. I just need to realign those points in time,” he adds.

  “The task just seems a little overwhelming,” Lennox tells him. “You have no game plan. You’ll burn out running in circles.”

  Cedric doesn’t even seem to be listening anymore. He’s obsessed, now seeing a connection between the stone, Nikki’s crash, and his transmissions.

  “She suggested the stone; a place outside of time,” he tells Lennox; “It was her idea anyway. She may have been saving herself.”

  Lennox nods understandingly, not wanting to exacerbate Cedric’s emotional state. The two play on through the morning and early afternoon.

  Night eventually falls on the city.

  Moonliner 5:07

  “Was anything caught on cam four?” Cedric asks Phaedra.

  “Nothing registering on cam four,” she responds.

  “How about cam five?” he asks.

  “Nine seconds of Nikki leaving the building at 7:21 a.m.” Phaedra answers.

  “Did she say or do anything on or in front of the camera?” Cedric asks.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she answers.

  “Damn it! That’s not enough,” he says in frustration.

  Cedric sits in the dark, now sleep deprived and irritated by his lack of progress. The task is far more daunting than he can admit; he’s in denial. It’s very late in the evening, nearing morning. Again, he has laser-generated graphs orbiting all around him. He’s looking deep within the haystack for the proverbial needle, with even potentially worse odds.

  “What about her beam box?” he goes on to ask; “can you cross reference all of her non shielded messages to me? Were any of them sent via dot five’s transmitters?”

  “Nine,” Phaedra answers.

  “Good, those will be much larger targets in time,” Cedric replies. “Can you locate the time stamp for the longest message of said nine messages?” There is a pause.

  “I’ve got it,” Phaedra answers.

  “Good, we have a target,” Cedric says. “Label said message as target one,” he instructs her.

  “Noted,” Phaedra answers.

  The plate from the past was Cedric’s tipping point. Change happens gradually prior to reaching it and abruptly, if not catastrophically once reached. When critical mass has been reached, there is no reversing a process. Finding the plate has made a believer of him, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. He’s out of the frying pan of depression and into the fire of obsession.

  “Hypothetical,” he says to Phaedra; “can you compare the transmission points of both Moondock transmissions against their reception points? Can you detect any variation between them, including frequencies?” he asks.

  “No,” Phaedra answers, “There is too little data on reception points. We’re lacking the data to formulate conjecture.”

  “What if we were to contrast time stamps, and all known data with our first successful trial on that rainy day last month; the first message we sent back in time? If you compare both the time and location differentials, as well as frequency deviation, you should be able to calibrate some standard regardless of its accuracy,” Cedric points out.

  “Calibrated,” Phaedra replies.

  “Phaedra, you’re a genius. I’m so glad I opted for your theoretic function. Now, recalibrate, this time using target one as the reception point, and current default values as the transmission point,” he instructs her.

  “Calibrated,” Phaedra responds. The moment intensifies.

  “Now what would the margin of error be were we to transmit to target one?” he asks with high anticipation.

  “Extremely improbable,” Phaedra answers. “Showing plus or minus twenty-seven years, three months and two days; marginal proximity at 193.436 kilometers outward in all directions. Odds of accurate transmission are over two hundred seventy-six billion to one, even in full repeater mode,” she explains.

  “So you’re saying I have a pretty good chance,” Cedric says with a sarcastic laugh.

  Cedric is standing in front of a large video projection of Nikki sending a message from DOT-5. The video is only nine seconds long, and is being replayed over and over in repeat mode. He reaches out and touches the projection as it zooms in on her face.

  “What’s the primary reason for such a large margin of error?” Cedric asks.

  “Leading causes; insufficient proximity data, insufficient transmission data; inaccurate and incomplete temporal data, and distance, all leading to vast variations in radial potential scales,” she answers.

  Cedric looks out his window into the deep, dark night and sighs. His heart is racing. He realizes that if he’s going to reduce that margin of error, and if he’s going to solve this problem, then he’ll need to relax. He’s now been awake for almost two nights, barely sleeping at all since finding the plate.

  He suddenly sees a green glow on the northern horizon. It grows stronger, then quickly fades. Then it comes back, this time taking up more of the sky; it’s the Aurora Borealis. Cedric has seen it before, but not like this. It’s much more intense this time, and higher on the horizon. Some red streams in, then fades into green again. A stream of green dips so low that it’s almost over head. The colors fade into a deep blue sky before picking up again, silhouetting the mountain peaks to the north of the city. It’s as if the lights are dancing. The show goes on for minutes before fading into the dark blue hue that divides the night from day; the twilight.

  Cedric yawns, giving in to gravity. He sits on the sofa for a second, then lies down. His eyes are fixed on the ceiling but unfocused. He’s finally more relaxed, taking a moment to reflect on his success, realizing that time is on his side.

  “Can you play my hypnosis track?” he asks Phaedra.

  Within seconds he finds himself breathing in synch with his own voice repeatedly playing over the sound system, amidst relaxing deep forest sounds.

  “Take a deep, breath.”

  “Take a deep, breath,” his voice repeats.

  Moonliner 5:08

  Cedric can smell the fresh forest air and its increased oxygen. He walks along a winding path that takes him through brilliant sunbeams and between mighty, towering trees. The wind is blowing but it’s a warm and comforting. A chipmunk cackles at him, then runs off into the trees.

  Cedric reaches a point where the path circumvents a large tree, causing the trail to disappear from his sight. Suddenly, he sees Nikki lean around the trunk of the massive tree. She smiles, then disappears, but can be heard giggling. Cedric approaches the tree slowly. Nikki leans around it again, this time calling his name.

  “Cedric,” she says with a playful laugh, then vanishes again.

  Cedric walks around the tree but doesn’t see her. The path is empty. He then spots her well off to the right of the path, sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree. He makes his way over to the tree and sits down beside her.

  This time he just sits there with her, careful not to say or do anything. He wants to ride this dream out. He looks down at the ground and avoids focusing on any specific object. He keeps his mind clear and his vision blurred.

  She smiles.

  “Is there a way back?” she asks him.

  Cedric is shocked that she has spoken, now knowing he’s deep within his dream. He’s afraid to speak, but can’t leave her question unanswered.

  “Is there a way back from where?” he asks.

  Nikki looks up at an open patch of blue sky and smiles. The moon rests right above the treeline, white and opaque, like a light cloud.

  Cedric’s lies on the sofa, now wide awake. His dreams are back. He sits up and excitedly begins examining his orbiting graphs again..

  Moonliner 5:09

  Trying to remain stealth, Cedric makes his way across campus to the media library, where he spends some time looking through digital files. The library has the most sensitive central-information system in the city. Cedric needs to access it to complete his postulations, although it does make him feel a
bit like he’s cheating on Phaedra.

  He logs in and accesses the system’s theoretical physics mode. He spends a lot of time looking at three dimensional models and graphs showing Fibonacci progressions within waves. He studies variations between waves’ peaks and troughs, looking for patterns. At times he thinks he can really see something, but like the colors of an aurora those glimpses tend to quickly fade.

  Before closing out of theoretical mode, Cedric decides to give the city’s greatest mastermind a few off the cuff questions.

  “Is time real?” he types into the system’s informer.

  “In and of itself, time is not real. It occupies no physical dimension, nor does it have any weight,” the system responds. “It is, however, a real reflection of matter in motion, reflecting observable patterns that without time would remain undetected. Thus, though intangible, time is very real.”

  “Is time travel possible?” Cedric asks.

  “It remains unknown,” the system answers.

  Cedric shifts the system into historical mode and browses the year 2014. He looks up the NeoTech tradeshow and comes across several pictures taken during the tradeshow. There are people walking around, booth to booth. There are a few small group photos, but nothing to really go on. Cedric has a fear of finding out his new found friend’s name, but likes to browse tradeshow pics just knowing he’s connected to the event. He looks right at Beau in one of the images, but has no idea. Ironically, the commemorative coin is sitting atop a stack of materials, on a chair beside Beau, clearly visible in the photo.