by Brandt Legg
“A few months ago, that would have impressed me—”
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway he wasn’t really speaking there, but in the dream he was. We saw him and—this part might amaze you—he was Kyle. You know what I mean? Same soul. He and Kyle are the same.”
“In the dream or real life?” I asked.
“There’s a difference?” Amber asked.
Kyle laughed. “She swears he’s me in real life, but we haven’t met him in person so speculation would be futile. But the crazy thing is—”
“Travis Curry is one of the names on Dad’s list,” I interrupted.
“Yep,” Linh said.
“So we now know who six of them are: Spencer, Lee Duncan, your dad, you, the Mayan book guy, and some world-famous archeologist.”
“But that’s not even the best part. In my dream Curry helped us figure out the code. It’s based on the old Mayan language, and they used a Trimethius tableau.”
“A what?”
“Your dad or someone wrote the pages using a Trimethius tableau,” Kyle began. “About five hundred years ago a cryptographer named Johannes Trimethius developed a matrix in order to write coded messages. They laid the alphabet out in a grid, A through Z, across and down with each subsequent row using a Caesar Shift.”
I stared blankly.
“It shifts the letters one character. It’s complex enough by itself but your dad’s sheets aren’t just based on our normal alphabet. The twenty-six by twenty-six matrix also uses a key from one of the thirty living Mayan languages. It’s like a Vigenère cipher only a million times harder.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I told Kyle the details from my dream and his brain, along with a little research, did the rest,” Linh said. “Then he got Curry on the phone. But none of that matters right now. The point is, we know what the three pages are.” Linh said. “They’re all instructions. One addresses the Clastier papers. Rose must have worked on them with your dad. Her journal is only a portion of Clastier’s work. The papers have been hidden for hundreds of years, waiting for the right time to publish them. Your dad’s sheets say the time is now.”
“Another reason for people to be after you, Nate,” Amber said, patting my back.
“The next page is about a roll of papers that documents the formation, existence, and activities of a powerful secret group, but not Lightyear. The roll is hidden in a tunnel ‘between knowledge and wealth,’ But there isn’t much more to go on other than the initials W.B.H.”
“I have them.”
“How? We just found out about—”
“I saw them in an Outview. They were my papers in a past life as W.B. Hibbs.”
“You were Hibbs and Clastier? You do get around.” Amber said.
I nodded.
“It says the time for their use is soon,” Linh said.
“I knew it. Spencer is just afraid.”
“If he is, there’s probably a good reason,” Kyle said.
“What’s the final page say?” I ignored his question.
Kyle squinted his eyes. “It’s a bit more difficult. It describes what I think is your gold box and calls it ‘the Jadeo.’ It doesn’t say what it is, just that ‘all’ depends on its safety and continued concealment.”
“That’s a lot of hidden stuff,” Amber said.
“But I’m starting to see...” My body tingled. “The four pages are like a key, a guiding letter from my dad. Three secrets: one’s time is now, one is waiting for the right time, and one is not yet time. Wandus explained how it’s all totally connected. And even the list of names, they’re the people who will help.” I was excited.
“Explain it to us slowly,” Linh said.
“The pages from Dad’s desk, Rose’s journal, or what we now know are really a portion of Clastier’s papers. Lee’s hidden evidence from the mausoleum, the roll of documents from Hibbs’ safe, the Jadeo—they are all secrets from the past, revolving around the same thing. It’s all about bringing knowledge forward to now. Wandus called it ‘many tracks with the same message.’”
“What are they revolving around? What’s the message?” Amber asked.
“Our souls.”
“That simple?” Kyle asked.
“That complicated?” Amber asked.
“Okay, we’re all trying not to get killed... and Nate, we’ve killed people.” Linh’s voice dropped. “All this fighting... there must be more to this than just our souls.”
“Is there anything more than our souls, really?”
32
The search for Dustin’s Window and Outin’s fifth lake began when we reached the lodge. For the next few days we were busy discovering and cataloging twenty-nine Windows, each location carefully noted on our expanding map of Outin. A list was made putting Windows into past, present, or future times, some appeared more than once, miles apart. In one, Amber reported watching a ship being built hundreds of years ago. Linh witnessed a spacecraft landing in Peru a thousand years earlier. The glimpses into the future included toxic wars and another one where everyone used soul-powers.
“It’s pointless,” I said one evening, when we all met back at the lodge.
“Even if we find the Window he went in, he’s not going to be just sitting there waiting for us,” Amber agreed.
“Then, what do we do?” Linh asked.
“Find the fifth lake,” I said.
“So, now you believe it exists?” Kyle asked.
“Yeah. The whole time we’ve been looking for Windows, I kept having the feeling I’m going to turn around and see the Fifth Lake.”
“Hey, Nate,” Linh began, “do you think Spencer knows we’re here?”
“Crowd must have told him.”
“Why hasn’t he come?”
“He probably wants us here. Lightyear’s remote viewers can’t see us, and because of how Outin affects time in our dimension, what better way to stop the mall attack and save you and Amber?”
“Then why didn’t he just leave you here the first time?” Amber asked.
“Impossible to know,” Kyle answered before me. “Nate probably needed to do something in the interval, like meet Wandus or Booker.”
“Or Luther Storch,” I interrupted.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about that. If people could see what happened at your meeting with Storch, it would expose Lightyear and the public would demand prosecution of Storch and the others,” Kyle said.
“Yeah, next time I’ll take a video camera.”
“But you did. I could use Vising right now and see the whole scene by reading you.”
“Great. Then go tell everyone what happened, I’m sure they’ll believe you.”
“What if I could use Solteer and place the scene, like you did to me with the fire truck that time?”
“I see where you’re going. Are you good enough with Solteer to do that?”
“Not yet, but I’m working on it.”
“You think it’s possible to place the scene in the minds of millions of people?”
“Why not?” Kyle smiled. “But imagine if we could somehow project and record it digitally, like you had a hidden camera. If it’s in there and someone else can see it with Solteer, then there must be a way to get it on video.”
“Wow,” Amber said. “That would shift the momentum to our side pretty fast.”
“Everyone would know how evil they are and... ”
“It’s a great idea Kyle, but until we figure out how to actually do it, let’s not get too excited.”
“It can be done. I’ll find a way,” Kyle said. “It’s all energy.”
In the morning, we practiced. My teaching methods were improving quickly. I checked the map and was showing them which grids to tackle when Amber asked if just she and I could go for a short walk.
“Why do you need to go alone?” Linh asked.
“I just want to talk privately. We don’t always have to be together,” Amber said.
“Privately? There is no mo
re ‘privately’ among us anymore,” Kyle said.
“They’re right, Amber. We’ve all been through too much together,” I said.
“I know, but there’s never any time. Don’t you see? We’re not safe. Any number of things can happen here. This isn’t our world and... ”
“Amber, what are you talking about?” I asked.
“She wants you to herself,” Linh said.
“No, that’s not it. But Nate and I were going to find the Calyndra portal. And I think that’s what we should be doing. Calyndra can take us to the past. The past, Linh. That’s where we can fix things—Rose, Dustin, the whole Lightyear mess.”
“We don’t even know if Calyndra is real,” I said.
“What is real?” Kyle asked.
“It’s real,” Amber said, quietly.
“What do you want, Amber? Should we all stop looking for Dustin and leave the safety of Outin? Or would you prefer Kyle and I stay here, while you and Nate look for Calyndra?”
“It doesn’t take four of us,” Amber said.
“Unbelievable,” Linh scowled.
“Listen, like it or not I’m the leader, so we’re going to stay here and keep studying, practicing, and looking for Dustin and the fifth lake. Maybe when we leave Outin we’ll go look for Calyndra... together.”
“While we’re here doing the Yoda-like training, studying soul instead of school, my chances of getting into MIT are vanishing.”
“Remember Outin’s reverse time, Kyle; you haven’t missed any school yet.”
“Where does all this time come from?” Linh asked.
“It’s hard to understand, but we think of time all wrong. It’s a dimension not a line of dates,” I said.
Amber laughed. “Kyle, we’re not going back to high school. Are you joking? This is way past that. Think about it—all those agents dead at the Shakespeare theater in the middle of Ashland. Who do you think they’ll pin that on? Nate, for sure, but this time, we were there too, and they know we know everything he does. They’ll kill us. We’re wanted terrorists. Our lives, at least as we knew them, are over.” She walked away toward Rainbow Lake, yelling back at us. “The fate of the world’s at stake, and Linh’s worried about who Nate’s girlfriend is, and Kyle’s worried about getting into a good college. High school is over kiddies!”
“What is her problem?” Linh asked.
Kyle put an unlit cigarette in his mouth. “Amber’s right.” He walked into the lodge.
Linh looked at me pleadingly.
“I’m sorry. It’s probably true,” I said.
“I guess none of us wanted to talk about it, but our chances of living through this pretty much vanished at the theater. I killed people.” Linh burst into tears.
I held her. “We’ll survive this, Linh. Remember the future is changing every minute. You were supposed to die that night in the theater, but you didn’t.”
“I was?” She pulled back, wiping her eyes.
“That’s why I came to Ashland because I saw you die in a vision.”
“Maybe we really are dead, Nate. Maybe we all did die that night, and everything since is some kind of illusion.” Her voice quivering, “I mean, Outin, what is this place?”
“What, you think this is heaven? Death is the only illusion, Linh. We’re totally and completely alive, and we’re going to win this.”
She surprised me with a kiss, soft and lasting. “I love you, Nate.”
At that moment, I believed any response could lead to pain. Instead, I looked away and said, “Let’s go check on Kyle.”
She tried to hide her disappointment. “What about Amber?”
“Don’t worry about her. She’s tougher than any of us,” I said.
Kyle was leaning against the back wall of the lodge, looking out toward Star Falls Lake.
“I should light this thing,” he said, biting down on the filter of his cigarette.
“Kyle, you’ll make it to MIT.”
“You don’t know.”
“Neither do you.”
“What about Rainbow Lake?” Linh asked. “Amber is heading there. She’s been in a few times since we’ve been here.”
“It’s always different,” I said. “I’m not even sure it always shows you the same dimension.”
“Let’s go,” Kyle said.
“Will you be happy if you see yourself at MIT?” I asked.
“I’ll be happy if I see us all alive in a few months.” He glared at me.
“If you’re so worried, why haven’t you gone in yet?”
“He wanted to,” Linh said. “But I’m afraid of what we’ll see. I asked him not to.”
“It’s not like a movie of the future. It’s contradicting glimpses.”
Amber was bobbing in a lemon-yellow-cherry-red-electric-orange swirl when we arrived at the bank. “See anything good?” I asked.
“At least we have sex before I die.” Amber smiled. “Other than that, it’s no picnic.”
Linh mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
“Come out and then return in a few hours, it’ll change,” I said.
She swam to the edge and stood up. I saw the bright colored water dripping off her naked body before turning abruptly. Kyle looked away as well.
“Why so shy, Nate? You’ve seen me before.”
Linh’s eyes met mine for only an instant.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Kyle said. “We’ll find out the future soon enough.”
33
We split up then. I told the girls to stay together but knew it was unlikely. Each day our grids got farther apart, and Amber and Linh were now reaching points beyond Crowd’s map. Outin was seemingly endless. I wandered alone among the most glorious trees that stretched higher and thicker than redwoods, coal-black bark and tire-sized globe-like leaves were hundreds of shades of the same color. Each tree came in different colors—one all in reds, the next all blues, then reds again, and yellows, oranges—it was breathtaking. They bordered an area we called the “great open.” As far as we could see, the sky-ground rolled into deep canyons and low hills, filled with blowing sands of glittering black and white stardust, ever shifting into dynamic patterns. So far we hadn’t ventured into the great open because there were no visible Windows and it appeared as dangerous as it was wondrous.
My thoughts were tense—arguing girls, Kyle’s frustration, my mom. Was she safe? After the carnage at the theater, Lightyear probably picked her up. Wandus had really made me understand that we have a fairly good idea about what we’re going to encounter in our lifetime prior to being born. Our souls map out complex possibilities intertwined with everyone else’s. I’d been too hard on Mom. If her soul knew that she’d live a life where her husband would be murdered, that she’d send her firstborn to an asylum and that her youngest would become a hunted terrorist, then Mom was a saint. It was time to check on her. I needed Spencer. How much longer could we remain at Outin? And then there were Cavanaugh’s warnings about the Jadeo that cursed me, like a thief constantly stealing my thoughts from anything else.
The only thing that could hold my attention was the image of Amber wrapped in nothing but a rainbow sheen of water. She wasn’t going back to Ashland—even if it was safe—I wanted her with me. As pastel powdery snow fell, I realized, or admitted for the first time, there was a connection between Amber and me that needed to be explored.
My three friends were my first students. It wasn’t fair to count Dustin; neither of us stood a chance in the roles of me as teacher and he as student. Linh had learned the most, but Amber and Kyle were doing well. People in the future wouldn’t have that familiarity, and a different approach to teaching might be necessary. At the moment of that thought, I heard a distinct voice, thick with an Indian accent. I turned expecting to see Wandus, but just his words were there. “Outviews hold the key to teaching. Each of your past lives has a lesson. If you can find that meaning, together they will help you understand so others understand. Understand?” Aside from levitation, Wandus had
taught me two things that had turned my thinking around: all the secrets are connected and the Outviews were more than just random flashbacks.
I tried to teach like Aunt Rose. Whether that would work on a larger scale was in my teetering stack of unanswered questions. Through a dream, Rose may have helped Linh see the key to deciphering the pages from Dad’s desk and finding Travis Curry, but Rose had yet to appear to anyone else. She was the queen of the astral, yet I couldn’t reach her there. What was I missing? What lesson of hers had I forgotten?
We had to find the fifth lake and somehow yank Dustin out of whichever damn Window he went into. How was I going to help the Movement, teach people to connect to their souls, and defeat Lightyear if I was hiding in another dimension?
I came upon a Window and saw an Orwellian future where uniformed people performed menial tasks endlessly in a life of repression and sadness for the masses, while a privileged few lived in luxury and decadence. I watched and recalled something Spencer had once said: “Imagine a future where you don’t need to keep photos or videos, music or movies, books or newspapers, financial or medical records—it’s all available online, on the cloud. All monitored and controlled. And all easily taken away.”
Amber had seen something in Rainbow Lake. Something kept calling her back to Rainbow Lake, a future she needed to know more about or an incident that she wanted to change. I’d give her that walk alone when I saw her next and find out what of our coming lives she had witnessed.
A muffled shout broke my thoughts, Kyle was charging toward me. “Someone’s here!” he shouted.
34
“What did you say?” I yelled back.
“They’re coming.” He screamed, gasping, moving his arms, and pointing behind me. I turned and saw nothing, then sprinted toward him. “No,” he yelled. “Run, Nate, run!”