While Time Can Wait

by J.J. Mainor

  Chapter P-3

  Arank and Eudora led Michael and Cole out to the lobby where they collected Jessica, already waiting for them; then they headed out and away from that frightful police station.

  Michael noted (as he had when they were brought here) that the station opened out into a large, public corridor the way it might have opened to a street back home. As they put it behind them, they passed a number of public offices and such, all bearing nameplates written with two distinct languages, one honoring the ruling Greeks, the other calling to the native Lenape; neither language he knew, so he could only fantasize that they were either predatory lawyers hoping to cash in on the misfortune of their citizens, or true government agencies there to serve the law-abiding public. So long as they were headed far away from this dreaded quarter, Michael didn’t care to find out which.

  All he knew was the more territory they covered, the more of a mystery this interior world presented to him. Nowhere could he see any sign hinting to the outside world – no windows, no doorway out of this structure, not even a skylight presenting them with a sliver of the glorious blue overhead. It was entirely possible their Manahata was buried, maybe beneath the ice marking one of the world’s coldest periods.

  Moving into happier places, the walls themselves lit up with advertisements. The words he could no more understand, but he recognized the happy faces, the figures holding some product, and those modelling the latest fashions – the visuals were universal as they were in Times Square. But those ads were everywhere! Like LED billboards with a softer appearance to the lights and colors, plastered against every wall, and where the corridor opened up into public courtyards, they curved around the massive columns holding up the ceiling above.

  But not every one of those displays bore advertising. Many flashed what appeared to be public art. Stylized depictions of animals danced across many walls. Wolves chased squirrels. Deer romped through electronic trees. Porcupines shed their quills in what he could only describe as a fireworks-type display.

  Tapestries covered doors and served as awnings over the display windows into the shops. Some tried to look like deer or bear skins, others bore graceful lines and patterns as he might find on ancient Greek columns.

  At first his eye fell on the Native influences, but the more he took it in, the more he realized the Greek influence was just as strong in the architecture and art. These Lenape may have been conquered and forced into Greek servitude, but over the time they had come to consider themselves Greeks and folded the Greek culture into their own.

  He spied depictions of olive trees painted on ornamental amphora serving as public sculpture. He recognized the figure of Poseidon by the trident in the hand of the statue. He assumed another figure was Zeus standing next to one clad in a deer-skin loin cloth likely representing a Native god.

  If this place reminded Michael of Times Square, it wasn’t just because of all those ads. Away from those dreary government offices, the crowds thickened. Some of those plazas were every bit as spacious as his familiar Times Square, and they were every bit as crowded with people swimming slowly through the crowds, shoulder to shoulder, front to back.

  Most were clad in the same single-piece tunic worn by the cops, the medical technician, and these two scientists. The woven cloth reminded him of the Greek influence, while the covering itself seemed to belay a modernized Lenape style. Though the garments were not something usually seen on the streets of his familiar New York, the signs of opulence and wealth were obvious.

  Bright colors or elaborate patterns differentiated the well-dressed from the more slovenly in their earth tones. Intricacy in the beadwork on the belts many wore around their waists or in the neckwear adorning most of the women and some of the men announced an individual’s status.

  Arank had no interest in showing these two what might have been tourist sites. As soon as they had crossed the crowd, he brought them to what could only be described as a transit hub. Housing the structure’s elevator system, it more closely resembled a subway platform.

  Travelers waited at one of a number of tubes. One took passengers upward, another downward. To the side, another pair allowed travel across the structure. Cars moved rapidly and ever-constantly through the tubes. Some stopped and slid forward out of the traffic while waiting passengers boarded. They were small and apparently private to the traveler and his or her party, but they were frequent enough to accommodate the most impatient rider – as soon as one departed, another took its place waiting to be loaded.

  The scientists led the party to one of the tubes heading sideways, leading them into a car once it came their turn. The car itself was tiny, maybe five feet square, with thin benches along the three sides away from the door. The walls were glass, allowing the passengers to watch the sights as they passed. Though once the car returned to the traffic lane and took off, it immediately entered a dark tunnel between the walls. Had it not been for that familiar lit ceiling overhead, none of them would have seen anything in that dark passageway.

  With the privacy of their transport, Arank finally broke his silence on their research.

  “About eighty years ago our scientists found a way to open a doorway to the other universes out there. When they determined it was stable, they sent a probe through to study what was on the other side. It met the vacuum of space. Unprepared for that kind of environment, they allowed it to take its readings before they cut it loose.

  “Subsequent tests found similar environments, so they began to send probes capable of space travel. They were able to collect samples from many of the universes they reached, and return home.”

  “How do you know you were in another universe,” Michael interrupted, “and not in some other part of your own?”

  “I will get to that,” Arank interrupted. “Not every doorway took them to empty space. In some cases they found versions of Earth where the surface had not yet cooled enough to support life. They found versions of Earth where the atmosphere had been stripped completely off. And in one case, they lost their probe when the world broke up at that very instant from the expanding red sun.

  “The research was dangerous, so Athens decided it should remain classified – to be studied only by approved scientists at their discretion. They allowed a handful of teams to pursue the research over the years in hopes of finding a habitable Earth to which we could send a human team, but in eighty years no one has been successful.

  “As you know, the odds of finding another universe with another version of this world are astronomical – almost impossible.”

  A flash of light from outside the car pulled Michael’s attention away from his otherworld colleague. For a brief instant – one long enough to recognize the sight, but not long enough to study or appreciate it – the car was outside! The tunnel passed beyond the structure and showed him the space between two buildings. Though there was sky directly overhead, all he saw around him was wall – beige and gray, weathered and dull, concrete or something similar. The structure they had seen from the inside was indeed massive, so massive, he could not make out the ends of the building, nor those of the one they had entered.

  Arank could tell he was impressed, but his research was more important. He went on as if he hadn’t noticed the brief distraction.

  “Not one of the thousands of tests over the years led us to viability, yet according to your statements, you claim success in all three of your attempts. Just the fact that you are here gave us hope, but when we tried to open a portal to your universe, we failed.”

  “Wait!” Jessica interrupted. Their time in that jail was more difficult for her than it was for the two men. Separated from the only two people she had some familiarity with and thrown into isolation, she had no one to talk to, no one to assure her she would be all right, and no one to at least assure her she had a friend in their ordeal. She sat alone on her bunk for the three days, anxious at every appearance of a guard.

  In a different cultur
e with potentially no concept of human rights which comforted her back home every time she would walk through the streets on her way to the university, she was not naïve about the treatment she might receive. She half-expected one of those men to rip off her clothes and force her onto that bed for his own pleasure. At one point during her interrogation, she thought that frustrated guard would smack her around like a ragdoll and force the answers he sought to his indistinguishable questions.

  Her mind had created increasingly horrific scenarios for which she had no one beside her to deflate. Each of those three worlds they had discovered seem more horrifying than the last, and none in this little band of theirs wished for home more than she had. It was her anxious mind which seized on Arank’s claim first, hoping for the miracle that these people had a way to get her back to her New York City on her Earth.

  “You know where our universe is!”

  “In a sense,” Arank told her. “Once the researchers were able to retrieve samples from other universes, they quickly discovered something interesting. We have known for centuries that there is a certain vibration within the subatomic particles that make up all matter. We have learned that vibration is unique to each universe.”

  “That’s impossible!” Michael interrupted. “If the multiverse is as infinite as we’ve theorized, there has to be repetition.”

  “That is what we thought. The variation is so minute, there are in fact an infinite number of vibrational variations. It is conceivable there is overlap somewhere in the multiverse, but in the eighty years we have had to work on this, we have not found one. When we searched for the vibrational frequency of our own universe, the only connections we made were to those where we left our probes.”

  At that, Michael’s eyes went as wide as his assistant’s hopes. “Are you implying what I think?”

  “Yes. That vibration allows us to map the multiverse and navigate it.”

  “Not for nothing,” Cole jumped in, “but if that is true, how come you can’t find a habitable Earth?”

  Arank smiled at him as he might a first year student. “You cannot set a course for a single island in the ocean if you do not know where it is. We have to find and map these universes before we can go to them specifically.”

  Michael shook his head, muttering “idiot” under his breath. He was a firm believer in the saying that there are no stupid questions, only stupid people; and his son seemed to demonstrate it more than most.

  The space outside flashed once more as they passed to yet another of these massive buildings. The scientist was too embarrassed by Cole’s question to notice it, but Jessica had seen it coming and turned her head to study as they passed. She marveled at apparent size of these things; each one about the length of a full New York City block, and likely just as wide. Maybe a quarter mile square, and she thought they climbed just as high if not higher.

  As they had seen from their brief trek through that first super structure, each one might have been an independent, self-contained city, bringing the concept of live, work, and play into the confines of a single structure. Just as many in New York lived their lives without ever having to leave the city, people in this world might never have to leave their home tower.

  Like before, her brief glimpse was over before she could truly ponder all the meanings. They were indoors once again before the distraction disturbed the science lesson. Arank continued with his speech before he lost anyone’s attention to the wonders outside their glass car.

  “I admit we took the results of the blood analysis the authorities made to place your universe in our map. Like I said though, when we tried to open the doorway, we could not reach it – we ended up in another universe entirely.

  “Next we wondered if we could integrate our technology with yours. We had your device sent to our lab, but it cannot accommodate the targeting array. Our current theory is that we have a flaw in our technology that actively blocks us from habitable universes. While yours seems to seek them out.

  “If we had time, we might be able to dissect both devices and eventually find the difference that solves our problem, but we do not. Thankfully for us, this project has such a high priority, we were able to secure your release in the hopes that you could help us understand your technology.”

  Cole glanced down to the large letters spelling out “Army” across his chest. He may not have understood the technical aspect of their research, but he understood the urgency this Arank had just spelled out. It had never portended anything good during Basic when it was announced that time was short. Even in conflict, the worst wars were always undertaken in haste. And he never knew any society to seek help from one deemed inferior unless the deal proved later to be a disaster for the lesser partner.

  He had been taught to keep his mouth shut in a prisoner-of-war scenario. All they were required to give an enemy was name, rank, and serial number. Any other information, or even an innocuous request of their captors could draw unwanted attention and possible torture. Though it burned within his stomach to learn what their hurry was in this project, that training suddenly pounded at his head to keep quiet.

  In a way, he was thankful his father didn’t have the same good sense.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” Michael spoke up, “why the urgency?”

  Arank deferred the question to his partner.

  Eudora leaned forward on her narrow bench, offering her expertise to this group once more. “The world’s population officially hit one hundred billion last year.”

  “How the hell do you have that many people?” Michael shouted, too surprised to give her the chance to explain. “This world could never support a population that large, no matter how good your agriculture is.”

  “Which is why we do not rely on agriculture,” she told him. “Most of our food and water is artificial.”

  “Even so,” Michael cut in again, “there isn’t enough material in the Earth’s crust. I doubt you could even collect what you need from space to accommodate the demand.”

  “Then I can assume your world does not have the ability to manipulate matter at the subatomic level.”

  “You mean like a transporter?”

  “A transporter cannot accomplish what I speak of,” Eudora told him with a smile. “We can physically dismantle an atom and rebuild it into an entirely different element. We do not need to seek out certain elements, because we can create whatever we need from the elements we have.

  “We have the ability to take the atoms and join them into whatever form we please. If we wish to produce squash, we simply ‘assemble’ a squash. We do not need to grow food because we can create it.”

  “There is still the energy problem --”

  “Not for us,” she cut him off. “We can store and recycle the energy given off when we split an atom, just as easily as we can store the individual electrons and neutrons until we need them again.”

  “Incredible,” was all Michael had to say about it all. “No wonder your population is so massive.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Unfortunately the population has been growing too quickly. Every year we move closer to our maximum production capacity, and the advancements that allow us to expand that capacity are not coming quickly enough. The gap between our demand and our capacity shrinks annually. We predict we have less than two years before the demand exceeds our supplies.”

  “Surely, with rationing,” Michael offered absent-mindedly before Eudora cut him off.

  “Our people have never known rationing. They have not suffered hardship, at least when it comes to resources, in more than ten generations. Though we live by a free market, Athens has decreed all citizens receive basic food, clothing, even housing. It is not an offer made exclusively to the poor – it is not a system of welfare as other empires have experimented with. Everyone receives the basic necessities of life so that they can choose to spend their currency on indulgences.

  “I must admit it has created a sense of
entitlement among the people. If we were to institute cutbacks to the distributions, the population would not understand. Many would think the explanation was nothing more than a cover – that the cutbacks were but an excuse to line the pockets of a corrupt regime. There would be riots in the plazas, clashes with the police. Local governors would have to call in the military to contain the violence, and I am afraid it would not look good to those who initially wait out the chaos.

  “Our sociologists predict three major empires will fall to the masses. Two more are uncertain. Both Greece and Rome will lose the inter-continental territories. War will eventually break out as fear grips the world and some of the surviving rulers see opportunity to expand their borders.

  “By the time the situation stabilizes, experts predict as much as forty percent of the world population will be lost, and it will be a full century before infrastructure is rebuilt and industry fully restored. I can guess by your surprise to our world that yours does not carry forty billion people.”

  “No,” Michael punctuated with a slow shake of his head. “We only have six billion.”

  “So you can see our urgency,” Eudora went on, “when we expect to lose six to seven times your entirety.”

  “What do you hope to accomplish?” Cole asked nervously. For an empire built on conquest and expansion, even he understood their only hope was to conquer one of those other Earths, perhaps his own. To expect their help, they were gambling on ignorance to steer this group.

  “It is not what you think,” Arank tried to assure him, sensing some of that fear. “The infinite size of the multiverse and the sheer number of variables in play mean there are far more universes in existence without another Earth. Those variations on Earth itself mean there are far more uninhabited versions of the world than there are those with human life on the surface.

  “Our hope is to send off a billion colonists to each of those Earths. They will use their worlds’ natural capacity to feed them and the strain on this world will be gone.”

  “The beauty of that plan,” Michael noted, “is that you can create a new colony on a new world when the population is in danger of exceeding your production again.”

  “Yes,” Eudora agreed. “It will be tough for the colonists, but we can easily spin it in a way that makes the move desirable. Otherwise, we would have to target worlds with existing infrastructure. As you noted, your world has so many people already, any war we might fight to conquer them would prove just as bloody as if we did nothing and stayed home – there is no benefit.”

  That seemed to satisfy Cole who used the remainder of the trip to study the dark tunnel outside and the brief moments of light as they passed between the buildings.

  Michael too, seemed satisfied. He spent the remaining time discussing the help these Greeks wanted from him. With his understanding of the hopper, they hoped to integrate his technology with theirs, and similarly theirs with his. With a single, completed device, they could establish their colonies, and he could return home and continue his own explorations without fear of getting lost again. He hung on every word his translator delivered from Arank’s mouth, all the while thinking of the Nobel Prize he would win and the big check that came with it.