Eva

by Simon Winstanley

  On 11th December 2013, Maxwell had finished a fire-lit meeting with some of his misguided followers. In the quiet basement of a ransacked supermarket, Miles caused him to drop his silver metathene case. Maxwell looked into its reflective surface assuming that the remnants of his inner ego-morph had instigated another conversation.

  “I’m not dead,” Miles spoke to him.

  It felt strange to be voicing an inner truth whilst pretending to be Maxwell’s alter ego. He knew that Maxwell would soon travel to Iceland with the specific goal of causing chaos at the Node. Leaving events as they stood, Kate Walker would be leaving Iceland in a Pittman helicopter. For Kate to reach the Node, Maxwell’s diversion must occur, as must the destruction of the Node’s perimeter fence. In those final moments, Miles would need to calm his friend’s crowded mind; at that point, there would be no time for goodbyes. From Miles’ non-linear perspective, it made more sense to speak with Maxwell now, while his mind was still accessible.

  “This is not your true mission,” he told Maxwell, almost apologetically, “but you do not have to go alone, I will go with you.”

  “You will attempt to talk me out of it,” Maxwell replied to the empty room.

  Miles knew that he couldn’t do that, but he had to remember that Maxwell thought he was talking with his suppressed alter ego.

  “You would expect nothing less, but I am still a part of you,” Miles told him. Recalling their time at the Pittman Academy, he continued, “I made you who you are. We have both sacrificed much in this life.”

  Maxwell was staring into the flames of his oil-drum fire, thinking of the sacrifices he’d made and justifying every one of them. Miles looked at his own surroundings within the EVA and similarly found himself justifying his choices.

  “Our sacrifice is justified,” he agreed with Maxwell, “Our choices made a difference.”

  He could feel Maxwell’s sense of isolation and offered him words of comfort, “You do not have to be alone.”

  Maxwell brushed his long hair out of his eyes, then put the metathene case away. He stared into the flickering fire and reached a conclusion.

  “Together then?” Maxwell asked the voice in his head to accompany him on his final journey.

  Miles thought it best to use words from Maxwell’s own personal mantra; words that had a deeper meaning in his friend’s mind.

  “We move separately,” said Miles, looking around at his EVA counterparts, “but as one.”

  “Siva must complete its path,” Maxwell replied, quite correctly.

  “Our sacrifice is just,” Miles told him truthfully.

  “Exordi Nova,” Maxwell stared at the broken circle of red paint daubed on the supermarket wall.

  “The New Beginning,” Miles agreed, looking at the timelines that had begun to shift.

  (~)

  Moving easily inside the dimensions of the Field that surrounded the Node, Miles could see the incredible changes going on in Kate’s mind: an unlocking of mental resources brought about by a metathene trigger that Alfred Barnes had handed her in a glass of water.

  He saw her swift decoding of her father’s message hidden within a Biomag. He also saw her genetically-advantaged mind absorb the complexities of Field and Boundary theory. To a certain extent it made him feel proud to be the one who had guaranteed her arrival within the Node.

  He also saw her tragic murder.

  Acting out of fear, Alfred had exiled her and several others. But rather than risk being out-evolved by her newly acquired intellect he’d sabotaged her Biomag.

  Kate’s death had been a catalyst for change on both sides of the Node’s Field; something he knew he shouldn’t alter. But he also knew her keen mind must not be extinguished simply because it was contained within a fragile human body.

  Fai had once saved his life by moving it beyond biological dependence. With a suitable intervention, he could preserve Kate’s mind and maintain the coming rebellion against Alfred Barnes.

  The easiest part was creating the quasilinear temporal pocket that could support a mind within a timeless environment. The hardest part lay elsewhere. Kate knew that nothing within Boundary mathematics suggested that it would be conducive to direct human occupation. He’d had to find subtle ways to persuade her that she should try to reach such a space.

  It had actually been a line of text from her father that had been the deciding factor. His message to ‘createabetterworldthanus’ had given her a naive resolve. When the fateful day came, she’d acted out of faith in the existence of a world beyond the physical. She’d let go of her previous life and he’d placed her within a persistent Boundary space.

  Her learning rate had been astonishing. She’d quickly understood the non-linear nature of the space and the concept that all of time was accessible simultaneously. He’d watched her influence a simple PIN code and discover that effect could precede cause. Although he himself did not need to worry about paradox, it had been a useful lesson for her.

  He’d watched her, contained within her refuge and remembered having a conversation with Fai about a mouse within a maze. Although the mouse could make direction choices, it wasn’t aware that the maze had been created for it, or that the maze could be changed at will. Sometimes he’d had to undo some of Kate’s actions by counteracting her own interventions, but within her restricted framework, she’d been unable to detect it.

  It had alarmed him when her understanding had progressed to the point that she’d retrieved her own father via a Boundary crossing. For the longest time, he’d undone Douglas’ arrival, but she’d persisted. Eventually he’d allowed the event to remain, curious to see its outcome.

  (~)

  On 25th December 2013, Miles saw the Moon’s detonation and the seven super-fragments that would impact specific places on the Earth.

  There was a part of him that wished he could just stop Siva. In the same way that he’d reprogrammed the memory of a computer in Iceland, he could have corrected an FLC misfire; ensuring the deflection beams pushed Siva safely away from Earth.

  He could see there were other versions of him that had done just that. Those universes contained a human species that still had a moon, but no reason to leave their comfortable cradle. In many of those versions, dwindling resources eventually sparked famines and wars that had left the planet to the insects. Tragically, stopping Siva’s arrival had not been ‘For the good of Mankind.’

  Generally, he knew it was best if interventions were not directly observed; if people saw an unidentifiable mechanism at work, it often changed the intended outcome. Sometimes though, direct observation of an intervention had worked out in unexpected ways.

  Although the Walkers’ creation of the lunar cylinder hadn’t strictly been directly observed, its unaccountable presence had appeared mysterious to the human race. Initially, Miles had intended to undo the Walkers’ attempts, but then he remembered his own mysterious-looking intervention on Salisbury Plain. In both cases, fanning the flames of curiosity had produced a beneficial outcome; the results had undoubtedly been chaotic, but from this chaos had come development, progress and evolution.

  It seemed that providing choice was the key.

  But choice without end was not the same thing.

  Although his actions to save Kate’s mind had been well intended, he could see that her choice had placed her within an infinite maze. She could make and remake history, endlessly choosing new paths and directions, but the labyrinth had no exit. She couldn’t see the simple truth that she was trapped. Her benevolent intentions had similarly imprisoned her parents.

  Miles also had a choice: maintain the EVA’s temporal partitioning, or not.

  Out of many, one Miles Benton could do things differently.

  Drawing on the timeless nature of the EVA’s structure, he could give Kate’s maze an exit. Several in fact; a notion that seemed consistent with offering choice.

  From the Walkers’ dimensionally limited perspective, the new temporal junctions and pathways would simp
ly appear to be three-dimensional shapes. Something that would inspire their curiosity and inspection. When they were ready, they could choose their exit from the Boundary.

  Turning away from their small pocket of quasilinear time, he realised that he didn’t consider the EVA to be an anomaly anymore. It was a non-physical holding place for all events that had ever occurred. In retrospect, given the fact that it was a long-term repository, he thought a more poignant name may have been the Eridanus Void Archive.

  An eternity ago, the word ‘Archive’ had been chosen to represent the operation that would hopefully save mankind. The simple word had reflected a president’s intentions to create a ‘living archive’ for humanity. The tragedy was that Mankind’s first venture towards the stars had ended in disaster. Although the Eridanus had reached its destination, the planet wasn’t capable of supporting life.

  Although the Eridanus cylinder was self-sufficient and equipped to make further journeys, humans were still humans; division and difference of opinion had caused the onward mission to fail within a single generation. Denied the slow process of evolution, insufficient time had passed for them to learn patience.

  Between the Eridanus’ Divergence Day and their arrival at Epsilon Eridani was just under two million years. He studied the desolate planet that they would arrive to find.

  He had time enough to make the change.

  (~)

  Miles knew that, in many ways, Kate was as stubborn as he was. Long after her parents had made their choice, she’d continued to help people. Through various means she’d guided people towards the one place on the equator that might offer the prospect of sanctuary during Earth’s final days.

  He knew he’d miss her on the day that she made her final Boundary choice. Long ago, Monica Walker had once used a six-four pattern to persuade his ego-morph to ‘Assist Kate’.

  He hoped he’d done enough.

  The six-four pattern presented itself again and he found himself smiling. When he considered the boundless temporal variations of the EVA around him, and Fai’s final life-saving actions, Miles knew there was only one six-four pattern that would now guide him.

  “Always,” he spoke the word of infinite time, “Help.”

  LEAP YEAR

  14th February 1980

  Moving as thought and energy, they left Kate behind and travelled into one of the spiral shaped interventions that they’d discovered within the Boundary. In the same way that they’d once seen the many alternate timelines that it contained, they now tuned in to one specific temporal location.

  “Do we look different?” said Douglas.

  “We’re just thirty years younger,” Monica replied, “Give or take an epoch.”

  The scene was familiar, even if the high perspective wasn’t. Much younger versions of themselves were sitting at a restaurant table. In a few moments, young Douglas would propose to Monica. In reply, she would exercise her leap year prerogative to propose to him instead.

  “I kind of forgot we always used to have bodyguards back then,” said Monica, looking at the two Archive-supplied men surveilling the room.

  “There I go,” Douglas saw his younger self dropping to one knee in the middle of the restaurant. A smattering of polite claps came from the other restaurant guests, then Monica kissed him and presented him with an envelope marked ‘External Variable.’

  He laughed at the event that was part memory, part spectacle; their counterparts below would never know the irony of the words.

  “Look!” Monica laughed at the unfolding event, “It’s all happening the same way!”

  “Not quite,” he said, pointing down at the scene, “Look at the envelope in your hand. It isn’t red here, it’s pink.”

  “So is that the only difference?” she said.

  “Only one way to know for sure.”

  Douglas had once accidentally inhabited his former self when a 1999 USV intervention had gone awry, but Kate had managed to pull him away. Kate wouldn’t be there this time to pull him back. All he had to do was let time absorb him.

  “We won’t remember seeing any of this,” Monica looked down at the restaurant, “Not even how our timeline ends.”

  The young Douglas was now presenting Monica with an engagement ring box.

  “You know…” he looked at the young couple they used to be, “I think I’ll be OK with that. Who knows? Maybe it’ll end differently after we do this.”

  The moment was approaching: one of the other diners would unwittingly cause a distraction. In the long second when everyone was looking away, they could make their entrance, undetected.

  “I’ll see you soon,” Monica began changing energy states.

  “I C U already,” he replied and moved towards the younger Douglas who was offering her an engagement ring; a thin band of gold, broken in one place by the presence of a small diamond.

  There was a period of duality, where his memory lay in perfect registration with the view of his future life. He both remembered and experienced pushing the ring onto her finger.

  The restaurant diners had now started applauding, completely ignoring the glares of their bodyguards. He found himself staring into Monica’s bright eyes and feeling that, impossibly, he’d somehow known her forever. The soft candlelight caught the dimples in her cheeks and she beamed down at him with an effortless charm.

  Nearby, a man who was enthusiastically joining in with the applause, succeeded in knocking over a champagne bucket, sending ice cubes flying over neighbouring tables and onto the floor.

  As though suddenly emerging from a stray thought, Douglas felt the world around him pop into crystal sharp clarity.

  The bodyguards reacted instinctively to the ice cube commotion and stepped forward past them to act as a protecting wall.

  Seizing the opportunity, Douglas grabbed Monica by the hand and pulled himself to his feet. He planted a quick kiss on her surprised face and ushered her in the direction of the kitchens, before the bodyguards had time to notice.

  “What are you doing...?!” she gasped.

  “Embracing the chaos!” he whispered loudly into her ear, then pushed her through the swing doors, past the startled staff in the steamy kitchen, and out into the cool night air.

  ERIDANUS

  21st August 2190

  The quiet room was now simply a collection of things; inert objects that could no longer be called possessions. Any personal memories connected with them had departed, leaving only the base materials behind.

  Raven walked to the corner of the room and saw Chen Tai’s empty wheelchair. True to his word, until his last day, he’d helped her.

  Driven by an almost limitless remorse, he’d spent the remainder of his life manipulating Luóxuán Biotech’s resources; always ensuring that he maintained his majority share in the company that his parents had founded. His parting shot had been priceless.

  She walked alongside the low work surface that ran through his open plan house. When she’d first been here, five years ago, the surfaces had been mostly empty; a visual symbol of how little was in his life. Now the same space was a clutter of electronic equipment, fabricator components and pieces of biomechanical prototypes.

  She reached the desk area near his bed and saw a transparent plastic cube, inside of which were a cluster of green circuit boards. Lifting up the palm-sized box, she could see the components and memory chips were stacked and densely interconnected. As she turned it from side to side, she felt something papery had been stuck to its base. Carefully tilting it to one side she saw what it was. On a small sticky label were the faded, handwritten words ‘Fai, Iteration 1’.

  This had been his version of a photograph; an electronic snapshot of his precious child. The first thing he would see on waking and the last thing he’d see at night.

  A knock came from the front door.

  She carefully placed the cube down again and made her way to the front of the house. The lower gravity here at The Falls made the journey a few simple strides.

&n
bsp; She opened the door to find Mr. Kohlner standing outside, behind him was an electric buggy manned by a chauffeur.

  “Miss Meznic,” he smiled, “My apologies for the interruption, but I have the papers.”

  “Come in,” she stood aside and let him through.

  “A belated happy birthday,” he set his briefcase down and removed a thin computing tablet, “I’ll just need a few signatures to authorise the transfer.”

  He held out the tablet and clicked his pen. The screen turned on, showing a simple document that confirmed alterations to specific clauses.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she looked at him.

  “Forgetting…?” he studied the screen.

  “The recube witness,” she prompted him.

  “Yes, of course,” he shook his head and began digging through his briefcase.

  She doubted that he’d simply forgotten at all, but thankfully she was mentally several strides ahead of him. Digging into her baggy coat pocket, she retrieved her own recube and set it down on the nearby work surface.

  “Ah, there it is,” he stood again, holding his recube.

  He placed it alongside Raven’s black box.

  The two cubes gave a short vibration indicating that their synchronised recordings had begun.

  “There,” he said, “Mutual witness.”

  As she began signing the clauses, he shuffled uncomfortably. After a few seconds he felt the need to fill the silence.

  “It will be… unusual to have someone of your genetic status as our CEO.”

  “Ah, Mr. Kohlner,” she said, “Beyond the Earth, equal rights for all.”

  “Indeed,” his plastic smile flickered very slightly, “You will of course have my full support.”

  “I know,” she clicked his pen and handed it back to him.

  She watched him pack his briefcase and head out to his waiting buggy. When she was sure he’d left, she closed the door and took off her coat. Reaching behind her neck, she undid the back of her shirt and allowed her itching skin to breath. Though as Chen Tai had suspected, the itch was in fact the continuing development of nerve endings; a genetic development that her mother had been trying to prevent.