‘Out of many, One.’
One of his many other selves must have built the time-like refuge. He could also deduce why they’d done it: just like him, from a very early age they’d liked to help others. Someone had arrived here from a linear timeframe and he’d acted to help. In fact, taking into account his former ego-morph’s tendency to anticipate, Miles considered it more likely that one of his counterparts had studied the timelines in advance and prepared for the moment of arrival.
‘Prepared for it,’ he thought, ‘or intervened to create it.’
In his ego-morph duties it had often been his task to perform interventions; corrective measures to ensure the success of a task. He hadn’t considered it before, but it was possible that these timelines could also be manipulated.
When he looked at the intricate interweaving patterns, he could all too easily imagine the potential for accidentally causing paradoxes, or somehow preventing the events that led to his own arrival here. He could also see that this hadn’t happened; the other versions of him still existed.
Again, the reason seemed to arrive without effort. Each Miles Benton had originated from a separate causal universe. Their timelines were independent of his, so they were free to act without paradox.
And act they had.
The more he studied the timelines, the more of his counterparts’ temporal interventions he found…
(~)
Miles looked out across the open plateau.
This was an intellectually barren world. A primitive civilisation that had never truly advanced. As if paralysed by the frost beneath their feet, their minds had stagnated and eventually died on the same planet.
He’d seen, first hand, that different cultures used different references. By the Mayan Long Count this was around 0.0.0.0.0. Here though, on the open plateau that would one day become Salisbury Plain, the most equivalent reference was 21st December 3114BC. But the people here couldn’t yet conceive of time in this way.
For many, the passage of the Sun or Moon across the sky was the subject of legend; motions that were open to interpretation, worship or fear. But at the heart of each culture was a thematic symbol of renewal; a cyclical nature, quietly mirroring an underlying universal pattern that could be felt, but not yet understood.
The first lessons were therefore built upon this symbology. The events that followed were simply the result of curiosity and time.
To draw attention to the fact that an education was about to start; a metaphorical school bell needed to ring. Manipulating the local gravity, he set up a resonant frequency within the ground; a deep tone that carried for several miles. Using the hydrogen within the morning dew, he flashed the water into a homogenised vapour medium, then used the matter to produce a manifold inflection event.
From the centre of this circular patch of ground, like the ripple of a pebble thrown into a pond, a wave radiated outward through both the mist and ground below it, making no distinction between air and solid matter. On arriving at the boundary of the circular patch, the ripple suddenly froze. The matter it contained froze too, creating a circular ring of solid earth that protruded above the surrounding plain.
He maintained the bright eversion point on the ring’s circumference, using it like a beacon to attract the local population. As expected, there were few students at this first lesson. Within the earthwork ring he projected many structures to convey the fact that tonight was the winter solstice. He showed them that it was the longest night of the year, the orbit of the Earth and the static Sun.
He brought the first lesson to a close and collapsed the eversion point.
The circular ripple had left behind a permanent earthwork ring, moulded into the very landscape of Salisbury Plain, but the only evidence that the ball of light had ever been there was a northeasterly gap within the ring.
The next night he returned to the broken ring symbol, placing a spherical eversion point within the gap to create another theatre of words and light. However, he knew that independent development would not come from being repeatedly shown the same information. True independent thought needed a spark of curiosity; something that appealed to the pattern-hungry human mind.
Condensing the watery mist, he solidified it into angular blocks of ice; large trilithon arrangements that would frame the passage of the Sun, Moon and Earth. The formations would melt, meaning they couldn’t become the focus of worship or emotional feedback, like his old silver coin. Only the idea would remain, leaving the more curious minds to seek ways of recreating the knowledge.
The later henges of wood and stone proved him right. Although the enduring stone structures had contained errors, his intervention had prompted a growing curiosity in the passing of time.
EQUATOR
2nd January 7142
From the Discovery’s cockpit, Cassidy had seen their departure from Iceland. However, the island itself was no longer surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean or Norwegian Sea.
According to Fai, the change had begun immediately following the first lunar shard impacts. The deep, continental trenches through Africa and Colombia had filled to create vast inland seas, causing the sea level in other areas to fall. Earthquakes and secondary tsunami effects had lapped the globe for days, irreversibly disrupting the oceans. Extensive cooling in the Antarctic had eventually locked water into ice-shelves, lowering sea levels still further and exposing land bridges not seen since the last ice age.
The Discovery flew overland across the Iceland-Faeroe Rise, Wyville Thomson Ridge and over a British Isles shaped region connected to France. Throughout their preprogrammed journey, Fai continued to relay details about their destination. Succumbing to fatigue, Cassidy didn’t remember falling asleep but she awoke with a start several hours later. Marshall was gently shaking her.
“Cassy,” he smiled, “Look.”
In the distance, she could see the Eridanus Launch Centre. Behind the trees, the tall silhouettes of rocket stacks stood vertically against the orange dusk sky. A warm sense of awe spread through her; the scale of the distant facility seemed to match the scope that Fai had described during their journey.
After its completion, the Eridanus Launch Centre had been used continuously to raise personnel into orbit. Departing over many years, the Field-wrapped orbital ships had simply waited for the completion of the Eridanus cylinder before transferring inside. During that same period, the equatorial facility had expanded to provide the first launch platforms for the Andromeda and Vega crews. The orbital sleep cycles for those ships would be measured in tens of decades, but Fai’s information on the subject had ceased when she’d entered hibernation.
The Discovery dropped in altitude as they continued their approach. Verdant treetops raced underneath them, scattering flocks of birds in their wake. Soon the forest canopy fell away completely, exposing the large open area that contained the equatorial launch site.
It was difficult to accept the sheer scale of the destruction they were seeing. At first it seemed that the site had been purposefully destroyed. But the closer they looked, they saw that time itself had painstakingly achieved the same outcome. The launch centre was a broken ruin.
An uncomfortable silence filled the cockpit.
The Discovery slowed and, accompanying a change in engine pitch, began to hover in place opposite one of the dilapidated structures.
“We have reached the appointed coordinates,” Fai broke the silence, “but I am not receiving landing confirmation from the Eridanus Launch Centre.”
Marshall stared at the devastation.
“We were gone too long,” he said, “There’s nothing left.”
“The original design specification of the Discovery was not updated to permit landing on water. My fuel reserves can keep us aloft for sixteen minutes, eleven seconds. However, I recommend landing on the elevated ground forty-seven metres to the east.”
“Do it,” Cassidy stared blankly.
The view lurched away then levelled out again. As the engine pitch
fell, so did her spirits. A few seconds later, a bump confirmed they had touched down.
“The Discovery is no longer equipped with a surveillance drone,” said Fai, “Please take a recube and remote hub, so that I can process the environment.”
A small recess in the cockpit illuminated itself, showing a black cube surrounded by a pile of smaller ones. Marshall grabbed a handful and put the larger box in his pocket.
In a dumbfounded daze they left the cockpit and walked through the Discovery’s cargo bay, where people from the Node were packing away their few possessions. As Cassidy made her way to the rear ramp, smiles drained from faces; the others hadn’t seen the view, but they could now tell that something was wrong. In contrast, when Atka’s group saw Cassidy’s approach their concerned expressions became ones of relief.
“Ekwayta,” Atka nodded.
“Yes,” she sighed.
The rear ramp opened and humid air flooded in.
Being closest to the exit, Atka led the way out and those from the Node followed on. Emerging from under the Discovery’s wing, Cassidy could see they’d set down in the middle of a wide causeway. Composed of robust sandstone blocks, it was heavily stained and overrun with fine veins of woody vegetation. Minor chips in block edges were filled with dense clusters of moss-like greenery; a sign that although the stone had persisted, nature was still hard at work wearing away at any available imperfection.
Further away the ragged decay was less subtle. Fractured, vegetation-covered half-buildings broke through the ground at odd angles. Tail fins of rusted aircraft jutted out from deep, green ponds. The proud rockets they’d seen on the horizon were still there, but their bases seemed to merge with the sloping mounds of sand, silt and debris of the ground.
Cassidy could see that nature had taken advantage of the intervening millennia; reclaiming the land and dissolving what it didn’t need. If Fai’s information was to be believed, this had once been a thriving place. Tyler, Danny and others had been the catalyst for a second push to leave the planet. Their legacy was now only fit for archaeologists.
“Fai, where is this place?” Marshall was speaking to a cube, “Geographically?”
“The easternmost point of the former Gulf of Aden,” Fai’s tinny voice replied.
“Why does that sound familiar?” asked Gail.
“It was one of seven impact sites to utilise the element-rich lunar shards.”
“But the Gulf of Aden isn’t on the equator,” said Scott, “Is it?”
“It’s equatorial, but no,” Gail shook her head, but then seemed to realise something, “Of course, the planet’s axial tilt’s been changing for thousands of years. Fai, would I be right in thinking that this location is only on the equator now?”
“Yes, Gail,” Fai replied, “Ultimately the tilt will continue to carry this location further south.”
“Towards the pole?”
“Yes,” said Fai, “but by then, the combined effects of eccentricity, obliquity and precession will have interacted to prevent Earth from supporting life.”
“This day just gets better,” Roy exhaled heavily, “Hang on. Fai, you said this place is one of seven impact sites?”
“Yes.”
“Are there seven launch sites?” said Scott, looking in the direction of the Discovery.
“No,” said Fai, “the other locations were centres of different human endeavour.”
“Even if they’re not ruined,” said Gail, “The Discovery’s almost out of fuel.”
“We’d never get there,” Cassidy realised.
For the first time, she found herself thinking that it had been a mistake to have left the Node. Things had been far from acceptable, but at least they’d had the certainty of food and shelter. It seemed that every step she’d taken had done nothing but reduce her choices and complicate their lives. But at every stage she’d had the strong feeling that her decisions were right. Even trusting the villagers. In retrospect, there had been no reason to assume that the villagers would treat them with benevolence.
Marshall’s explanations for the Field-like event that had intervened to save her life were utterly unlikely; something he’d freely admitted. The more she thought about it, the more she could understand why the villagers had burned the temple while they were inside it. From their perspective, omnipotent sorcerers had arrived into their lives wielding terrifying and unexplainable powers; blinded by primal fear they’d acted to kill the threat.
Perhaps she herself had been blinded though, not by fear but by the persistent thought that she and Marshall had shared: the notion that they must enter the villagers’ temple. If they’d chosen to stay outside, then the chain of events that had followed would have been completely different. She knew they probably wouldn’t be here now, stranded in the relics of a long-dead civilisation.
Lost in her thoughts, she turned away from the others and walked across the ancient causeway. Under the thin strands of vegetation she could see parallel, hollow tracks were carved into its surface. The thought occurred that things had perhaps once run along these tracks and she found herself looking along the causeway to find their starting point. Unsurprisingly, the stonework road simply ran into a collection of rusted beams within the gloom of the surrounding forest.
In the other direction, the causeway stretched out to sea. She couldn’t tell exactly where it led because Atka’s people were gathered in her line of sight. They were enthusiastically discussing something and pointing at the shallow walls that edged the causeway. Appearing to reach a collective decision, Atka turned and walked towards her.
“Pleez,” he held out his hand.
On the sandstone causeway, the first spots of rain began to appear.
MANY MILES
(~)
Miles enjoyed using rain.
Manipulating the hydrogen was easy and there was something about the chaotic nature of a downpour that made it easier to conceal the intervention moment itself.
On 14th February 1952, Dorothy Bishop had been due to meet William Pittman. Their kismet first meeting had been meticulously planned by her father, right down to the explosive tyre blowout that Dorothy herself would trigger.
On a quiet dark road, the original blowout occurred perfectly, but unspectacularly. Dorothy’s rear tyre had simply burst and her car had slowed to a halt. William hadn’t even seen the event and had driven by, oblivious to the fact that anything was wrong. Without the Pittman family’s initial funding, Archive had collapsed.
To correct the issue, Miles had let loose a torrential downpour and increased the visibility of the blowout. The resulting ballet of skidding, aquaplaning vehicles had culminated in a first meeting that neither of them would forget. He’d also felt a certain amount of satisfaction at drenching the woman who’d later put him in the ego-morph program.
He’d also used rain against the ego-morph version of himself. In the hours surrounding Archive’s ‘Fallen Veil’ message, the rain that had hit London had helped Marcus Blake and Kate Walker avoid CCTV detection. Escaping London, they’d reached the safety of a Dover cottage.
Later, at a disused airfield, a Cessna light aircraft had carried Kate Walker and the deprogrammed ego-morph away to the Node. Carrying a Z-bank, Nathan Bishop had first met Marcus and returned to the Warren. This event would have turned out very differently for all involved had Miles not delayed a security patrol with a sudden and unaccountable downpour.
(~)
Miles could see the moment that the FLC’s lunar location had been chosen. On 24th December 1968, the Apollo 8 would drop the first element of the future FLC to the Coriolis Crater on the far side of the Moon.
Knowing its ultimate location, he now worked backwards and directed the meteoric impacts that had shaped the lunar surface. Impacts that had also created crucial structural weaknesses that would be required later.
(~)
Miles saw that his multiple interventions were now in place.
On 22nd March 1989, during a close approach o
f Siva, he now applied a simple electrostatic charge to one component of a single circuit board. A radio telescope triangulation unit quietly failed.
Interpreting the lack of position data as a Siva course change, automatic systems triggered an emergency response. Hundreds of Archive personnel received automated telephone calls; a recorded voice telling them that “The world forecast is for heavy rain.”
In the largest convergence event he’d ever attempted, Miles saw them assembling at the Whitehall Bunker under Trafalgar Square: Dorothy Pittman, Jim Broxbourne, Ronald Bishop, Robert Wild, Thomas and Eva Gray, Ivan Meznic and of course the Walker family.
The timelines had reacted in a major spasm, but new possibilities had arisen.
(~)
Miles saw his childhood friend, Maxwell Troye, use a final dose of metathene then destroy the London Eye. The birth symbol of the Exordi Nova had burned and cauterised the Thames. In the minutes following the event, the fiery circle had spread its message of fear through social networks. The symbol had impacted too many timelines; Miles could not prevent the event.
His friend from the Pittman Academy had sacrificed himself because his ego-morph programming had told him it was acceptable. Nothing, short of complete deprogramming, would alter that; his life would always end in sacrifice.
Miles could see another way to allow his friend’s life count for something better. He reached into his mind and assumed the role of a guiding voice. Initially Maxwell was resistant to it but Miles persisted, showing him how he could serve Archive best if they genuinely feared the Exordi Nova.
Using a rope that Miles had earlier suggested he bring along, Maxwell made good his escape from the high glass capsule. In the unfolding chaos surrounding the destruction of the nearby Downing Street, few people even noticed. Only when he was clear of the oversized Ferris wheel did he trigger the detonations and then disappear within the fleeing crowds.
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