I couldn't help but laugh. Of course Noah would find all of that exciting. He probably loved being in jail back in the 1800s. He had been addicted to the thrill of time travel and the clandestine operations. It was like being in a joke that the whole world is the butt of. I missed it just as I knew he did. I wanted it back, his presence made me realize that. I was right that living out this life would not be enough. I turned back to Erica. "Can you send me back to just after Noah and I disappeared in 1692? So I can remove the journal and go back to where I should have been before this whole mess began?"
"No, I cannot get you to a timeline that I don't exist in. At least, not this version of myself. I can only send you to sometime before you disappear, before the timeline splits. You'll just have to be careful to not let yourself be seen by your other self."
Noah cut in. "You would need to keep Sarah from seeing us as well, remember, Addy."
It was so strange to see him sitting there. He looked just like the older version of himself that I met only a few days ago, though his hair was cut in a modern style instead of the 1700s cut he had before. And he knew who I was. He was exactly the same person I had left, merely older. It was a relief after dealing with the first version I had met.
"If you've never done this before, how can you be so certain you're able to do it now? With the precision to get me where I belong?"
"Because I've already tried it."
My brain felt sluggish. I wondered if this was one of those strange paradoxes where something would happen in my future but her past? "I don't understand."
"We have another sphere."
This was definitely a surprise. I half smiled. "Let me guess, I'm supposed to go back to steal a sphere and bring it back to you at some point in the recent past?"
She caught the snark in my voice and smirked back at me. "Don't be silly. We had a new sphere made years ago."
"How?" I was having trouble following all of this.
"What do you think I've been doing all these years?" Noah looked at me mischievously. "I found out everything I could about the lab. I found out about the researcher who invented the sphere, and I tracked him down.
"But Erica said he had been neutralized."
"He had. It took quite some time and effort, but he was able to once again sort out the logic that led him to the creation of the sphere. Without the resources of the lab it's not quite as fancy. It's more like a box, actually. A small wooden box that would fit in say, a small safe should I need to hide it from lab people at some point." His grin was somewhere between petulant and wicked.
I suddenly thought of the little wooden box in my backpack. "How did you know?"
"I would've made a good scout, I think. About ten years ago the lab was getting a little too close for comfort. I needed to hide the box somewhere that it would find its way back to me later. In a way the lab would not expect. I got Erica to help me track down your return. I saw you on the dock at the marina the day you purchased the boat. I returned a few months earlier to plant the box in the safe, then get them off my tail. Got to skip past ten years. I hear they were rather dull. Nothing of note happened."
"So why haven't you gone back to fix things?" The question came out more harshly than I meant it to. But I was angry. Here was Noah mucking about in the future when he could have done the responsible thing and gotten back to where he belonged.
He turned quiet for once. "Addy, we only got the sphere a few years ago. Well, I guess about 15 years ago from today, right?" He looked at Erica, who nodded. "It took some experimenting before Erica got a handle on moving me around in time, then some more experimenting with Daphne involved. And look at me. Imagine me turning up from the conclusion of my mission this age. With a wooden box. There would be questions. Even if you came back shortly after me, they would know I hadn't come straight away. There would be more questions asked and it's likely I'd end up in the same position I was before I came here." He paused, perhaps feeling a little bit of the guilt I had intended to inflict on him. "Besides, I didn't see the point. I've had a good life here. I've got another sphere. I'm able to stay one step ahead of the lab. I have no desire to go back to them. And I strongly suggest you stay away from them as well."
I was still mad at him. He sounded more like he was trying to be my father, telling me what to do, than a friend offering a suggestion. Marina told me the lab did good work as well. If they were also saving lives with vaccines and advancing the human race through technology, why should that be denied to mankind?
Erica interrupted my train of thought. "There was another complication with that. Once you're back before the timelines split, the other programmer will be able to see you and control your sphere as well. Daphne and I have experimented with this a little bit in this timeline. One programmer can override the intentions of another. But if you manage to continue past the split into a timeline that this version of myself does not exist in, my ability to keep control over you will diminish greatly. Within a few minutes I doubt I’d be able to do anything at all when you tried to use the sphere. Daphne's much better at this than I am, but we're not sure she'd be able to send you forward in a different timeline. We haven't tried to do that. Had I sent Noah back and he continued along the original timeline, he could have been stuck there. So if you go back and fix things, you'll be stuck in that timeline."
Noah interjected again, "If that's what you want, that is. There are other options, you know."
"Like what?"
"I know you miss it. The missions, the travel. All of it. Erica and Daphne are able to send you wherever you want in time and are fairly certain if you went back to a time before the timelines split they'd still have control over you. So long as you don't go back to a time where another programmer is expecting someone to be, they're not likely to notice you. You could keep doing what you've been doing. Solving mysteries and finding ways to let society know the truth about things. And you could do it without having to subscribe to the lab's stupid rules."
"Their rules make sense given what we've done to the timelines, Noah!" I practically hissed the words at him.
"I'm not saying you should go tell Lincoln not to buy those theater tickets, I'm saying you can be careful without having to be as tied down as we had been. The small splits heal themselves."
I thought about it. It would be nice to be able to do my job without having to follow all their restrictions and formalities. I understood their concern and why they were in place, but I always thought some of them were a little overkill. And that awful white room with the moldy mats, I would not be sorry to not have to arrive there every time I came back. But there were diseases to be concerned with, and the readjustment period. "It was nice having the facilities available to us though. What if I go back and catch the black death like that other librarian did?"
Noah's face was blank. "We'll kill you before you can pass it on."
"What?"
He laughed at me. "Just kidding. But come on Addy, the black death, and all diseases of the past are curable in this day and age. You know that."
"It’s not like I can run down to the corner store and get the cure for it. And the return trip recovery is always so rough. Especially after a long trip."
"Not necessary. It was a side effect of the programmers from the lab."
"What do you mean?"
He sighed. "We don't know exactly, but I haven't had the side effects on the trips I've done with Erica and Daphne. We think, given the restrictions the lab puts on their programmers they were not able to operate as efficiently as they should be able to. That gets carried over into our journeys. We shouldn't be getting sick on these trips, just a little dizzy from the sudden time change. But it's not like we're physically being transported..." He trailed off and turned to Erica. "She explained this better and I still didn't quite get it."
Erica jumped in again. "Think of it as though your physical existence is not going anywhere. It's not like we're putting you in a plane and flying you somewhere very fast. It's m
ore of a shift in the state of your existence. You're merely moving from one point in time to another, not one place to another."
“But we end up in different places as well, not just different times.”
“Again, your physical existence is irrelevant. Your state is merely changing, not moving.”
I was having trouble separating those two things out in my mind. Actually I was having trouble keeping any of what I was told straight in my mind. “But you described it as a path through time. You kept seeing my path.”
“Yes, you can think of it as a path. But I see everything at once, so a spot further back is equally as accessible as any other closer time. It’s like your memories, you don’t have to think backwards through time to remember something from your childhood. It’s just accessible to you. And the same with locations. I’m sure you can remember the lab without having to think back through how you got here from there.”
“So we can travel without any of the side effects.” My mind felt so slow. Everyone else had already figured all this out for themselves. I felt like a child.
“There is still a little bit of dizziness, like Noah said. I’m not perfect at it.” She smiled apologetically.
I was amused at her humility, as though she was anything other than extraordinary. “Sounds like you’re much better than our previous programmers.”
She wouldn’t take the compliment. “They were kept under very strict control. If someone distracted me while I was trying to get you back it probably wouldn’t go well for you either.”
“Are you not happy about having this power?”
“I don’t see it as a power so much as a burden. Before Noah and Jim came along it was terrifying. And even after finding out what was really going on, to know that people would kill to keep me out of the hands of other people... Very few people know I can do this, and I intend to keep it that way. In fact, I’ve largely been guiding Daphne at this point and letting her take care of Noah.”
I glanced at Daphne again. She looked so small and harmless. “So you could send me back somewhere if I wanted?”
She didn’t answer me, but looked nervously at Erica, who answered for her. “Yes, Daphne can send you wherever you decide.”
“And whenever,” Noah chimed in. He seemed a bit giddy. I knew he wanted me to be as excited about the idea of traveling again as he was.
So it turned out that I could do it, I could travel through time with no restrictions. Go wherever I wanted. See whatever I wanted. And not suffer the side effects I always hated. It was very tempting, but I still had a nagging feeling of guilt for starting all of this in the first place. I knew I wouldn't really fix things, that this timeline would still occur. But I didn't belong here, really.
There were so many things to consider and I was still trying to sort through this new information. There was one thing I knew for certain, I wouldn’t be able to focus with everyone hovering around me and waiting for me to make my decision. I stood up from the table with everyone still watching me. "I need some time to think," I said. I stalked off towards the beach, certain that their eyes followed me but refusing to look back to see.
Chapter 21
I started walking down the beach on my own. I knew from my last visit it would take about two hours for me to circumnavigate the island. I hoped that would be long enough to sort out my brain. I felt like someone had been smacking me in the back of the head for the past few hours, and I had had enough. My brain was jelly, I needed a mental break. I needed to refocus and get my thoughts organized. I spent the first mile just focusing on the sand beneath my feet, trying not to think about anything important and letting my mind wander.
The sand was cool and hard where the tide had been retreating. It stuck to the bottom and lower sides of my feet. It was pleasant in the shade from the palm trees but a little too warm without it. I stood at a break in the trees and let the sun warm me for a few moments until I was sweating. The water occasionally running over my feet helped cool me back down. I thought it was strange that it should make such a difference.
I watched the bubbles push themselves up through the sand next to my foot whenever I took a step and watched the pockets of air sucking their way open when the waves retreated. I stopped for a moment and focused on the waves coming into land, letting my feet get sucked further down into the sand with each new volley of water. The repeated pattern helped me empty my brain as I drifted into a bit of a trance.
After a few moments, I pulled my buried feet out of the sand and moved onward further around the island. I tried to start thinking about what I wanted. I wanted to continue my work. That was a definite. With or without the lab supporting me, I wanted to keep finding the answers to life's mysteries. There were so many left that I had wanted to do. The Loch Ness monster, the disappearance of flight 370, and the Roswell Incident were still on the top of my list. I wasn't sure I wanted the lab on my back though. Noah’s love of staying one step ahead of his enemies and constantly dodging capture did not sound appealing to me.
I turned into the trees and grabbed a dead branch from the ground, then walked out to the packed sand. I used the stick to carve my options into the ground.
1-Stay here and travel.
2-Fix things and go back to my time.
3-Drop both spheres in the ocean.
4-Meet up with Jim and Noah and travel with them.
5-
I couldn't think of a fifth option. So option 1 where I merely continue along in this timeline meant I could travel as I liked, but with the ever present threat of the lab hunting for me. Noah is older here, he won't live too much longer. Marina as well. After a while it would just be Daphne and me, and I didn’t even know her yet. What if she didn’t want the rest of her life to be tied to moving me in time?
Option 2 would put me back where I was meant to be. I could fix things so the Gardians never find out about the lab, then return with Noah where we were supposed to go originally. I'd have to pretend I didn't know anything that I had learned in the past few days. I'd have to ignore the things about the lab I didn't approve of, like what they did to people who got in their way, and Eliza laying there with her head splayed open. I thought of that poor older married father version of Noah being killed. Is the reward of traveling through time worth the guilt, knowing who I really work for? Could I do that and live with myself? After all, it keeps their other, more noble projects funded so there is some good that comes out of the situation.
Option 3 meant we would all be stuck here. It might be harder for Noah, and myself once they realize I'm here, to keep ahead of the lab once our ability to travel in time is gone. And if they found us... I didn't think our options would be pleasant. Besides, if we made another sphere, they could make yet another once they figured out Noah and Jim did.
Option 4 would put me in this timeline, but the lab would still be destroyed. I could help them find Erica much more quickly and the three of us could continue our work. On the con side, Jim would still die rather young, and the lab would still be on our trail.
I crossed off option 3. I wasn't going to let myself get stuck here. Did I care about Noah’s age? Did I want to be back at a time when we were closer? It didn't seem to matter too much for our interaction, but I would lose him much sooner than I had anticipated. Although for all I knew, if I went back in time close to where I was meant to be, Noah could die rather quickly from something entirely unexpected. Jim would still die rather young. I wanted to find a cure for Jim. The only place I knew of that could potentially cure a disease like that would still be the lab.
I finally thought of an option 5. I took the stick and wrote in the sand:
No5-Take over the lab.
Noah would love that. I stared at the words. My mind had trouble gaining any ground on this idea, but the words burned into my brain as though there was nothing to think about. This was the answer. It got the lab off my back, left me the convenience of a place to live and thrive, the other research areas could continue, the program
mers could have a life. I just didn’t know how I could possibly accomplish that.
How had the Gardians done it? They broke in-that wouldn't be a problem for me given I lived there. They had weapons. But surely we had weapons. Were we taken by surprise? Was that it? I couldn't imagine them breaking in through the dome would give them much in the way of a stealthy attack plan. Maybe I should just let that bit of time carry on and take over the lab after they'd killed most of the important people. I tried to think back to what Montgomery had told me. They knew exactly where to take out the guards. They must've had inside help. If they'd been planning for years, it probably wouldn't have been that hard to get someone in the lab and work them up to a position of importance. They killed the people in the boardroom. If that was so, who has been chasing Noah? Who else survived?
I kicked at the sand in frustration. The option 5 written in the sand was destroyed along with part of 4. I left the others to be swallowed by the tide in a few hours and continued around the island. Even if I did let the Gardians take over the lab, what was to stop them from finding out I had restarted the time travel and coming back to kill me? I supposed I could just find out the answers they wanted, then they might leave me be.
The Sphere: A Journey In Time Page 19