by Brandt Legg
Then he’d found something beyond his greatest imaginings: an Eysen, named for an ancient word meaning “to hold all the stars in your hand.”
And everything changed instantaneously.
“If the public had any idea . . .” Booker said as the basketball-sized Eysen glowed in front of them. Booker had released a commercial model based on the original, which had become a huge hit and made him a trillionaire—although he still only admitted to being a billionaire. The mass-produced Eysens had replaced cell phones and computers, and had quickly become indispensable. However, the real ones were something far beyond what most humans could imagine.
“That the real Eysens allow communication through time?” Rip finished Booker’s thought. “That this little sphere can access all the secrets of the universe, and to see our own end . . . ”
Booker looked at Rip. “Have you heard from Crying Man?”
“No,” Gale Asher answered. A former reporter for publications as diverse as The Wall Street Journal and National Geographic, she and Rip had married and had a child while on the run, protecting the Eysen from the many dangerous organizations and governments seeking its secrets and power. “It’s been almost five years,” she said, looking out to sea, as if searching for Crying Man somewhere out there. “Although time is different to the Cosegans.” She kept sweeping back her blonde curls, blowing wildly in the salty breeze.
“Yes.” The ‘billionaire’ smiled as the same breeze caught at his white linen coat. “Time is a funny thing.”
Booker’s oft-spoke line eased the creased brow of the brooding archaeologist and he rejoined the conversation. “Crying Man told us we might not see him again. It would depend on the insertions . . . and on what we did.” Rip took a long swig of raspberry lemonade.
Booker nodded. He stared out to sea, thinking about the concept of Time and what Crying Man was up against. What they were all up against. “Speaking of time, look at Cira.”
Rip and Gale’s daughter, Cira, was laughing as she ran in and out of the breaking waves.
“She must be twelve now?” Booker asked. “Life in hiding can’t be easy for her.”
“It’s difficult,” Gale replied, tying her curls into a loose ponytail. “But she’s doing okay.”
Booker knew they would never risk leaving her in someone else’s care after what had happened when she was six. They’d barely gotten her back.
“How’s her eye?” Booker asked.
“Not perfect.” Rip ran a hand through his short brown hair. “She can see out of it though.”
“Good.” Booker watched the girl for another few moments, recalling something he didn’t bring up. “We need to know what happened to the other Eysens. How is that coming?” His eyes always had a twinkle in them, like he knew a secret. Or maybe it was just his aging youthfulness.
Gale shook her head. “It isn’t going too well. Savina is leading the effort, but as you know, the others are trying to get there first, while simultaneously disrupting us.”
Booker knew “the others” were a long list of players who had various interests: The Foundation (a secretive organization with seemingly unlimited funding. A private “think-tank” that employed futurists, scientists, engineers, economists, as well as former members of the military and intelligence communities. The brain trust was charged with planning and preparing for the future—a future that they would help shape.), the US National Security Agency (NSA), HITE (the covert technology handler for the US government), The Mossad, and various other religious organizations.
“We do know who got the first four,” Rip said. “Nostradamus, then Malachy, Clastier, and us. Five more to account for.”
Booker had been directly involved in recovering two of those Eysens. They had a good lead on the third, and he was actively working with a mysterious group, known as The List Keepers, who were using super computers to rebuild historical data that he hoped would lead them to the others.
“We’re running out of time,” Booker said softly, swirling the last of his lemonade.
Gale looked at him, puzzled.
“What?” Rip asked. “I didn’t hear you.”
The wind and the waves acted as a white noise filter, and Rip had been caught up in watching his daughter chasing seagulls in the surf.
“Time is short,” Booker repeated.
“Why?” Gale asked, thinking Booker had never been too worried about time before.
“The Cosegans are in trouble,” he reminded them. “Crying Man told us, ‘The understanding of time, in your era, is badly limited. More important is the view of the future you have seen. It is something you can change, and you must change, because if you destroy your future, you not only destroy us, but you will erase all that has come before. You will never have been.’”
“I remember,” Rip said. “His words have driven us every day since.”
“It’s always difficult to think of us somehow being able to affect the past,” Gale said, her blue eyes sharp.
“The concept that time is really one instant rather than liniar is challenging to human logic,” Rip added.
“Crying Man also told us the Eysens were sent from the Cosegans to help us,” Booker reminded them. “That they showed us everything.”
“He said that the Eysens had mostly been used selfishly by those who came before us, rather than to help the Cosegans.”
“Right,” Booker said. “All we need to do is search history for the leaps in technological advances . . . ”
“And we’ll find the other Eysens,” Rip finished.
“Exactly.” As Booker watched the little girl running toward the gazebo, a beautiful combination of blonde curls, lightning eyes (even though one was slightly droopy), and brazen, independent, Gale-like fire, he knew it still wasn’t wise to tell Rip and Gale what he knew about the Terminus Doom.
Find the other Eysens first, he thought. Without them, we will all be lost.
Four
Trynn and Shanoah walked in silence until they reached their favorite grove of flowering trees.
“Who are these people who call you Crying Man?” she asked.
“Ripley Gaines and Gale Asher.”
“The archaeologist?”
“Yes.”
“But you’ve always said that if the archaeologist ever digs the Eysen out of that cliff, it would mean that you have failed in every other attempt, and . . . and we’re . . . ”
“Basically dead,” he said, finishing her statement.
“Yes, and that would be our last breath, our last hope, to save everything.”
“Correct.”
“Then we’re that close?”
“Correct again, I’m afraid.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Will the Imazes even get the chance to launch?”
“You’ll launch. The question is, will you make it back.” Trynn reached for a fruit and plucked it, breaking it open and offering Shanoah half. They enjoyed the juiciness.
Shanoah touched his stubbly cheek, then kissed him. “That has always been the question.”
His almond brown eyes peered into hers. “Yes, but I mean will there be anything left to come back to?”
“Would you tell me?” she asked.
He knew she meant had he seen her in the Eysen. “I have seen successful results of your missions. You have been there.”
“Me?”
“I have not seen you, specifically, but Imazes for sure.”
“They think we are aliens. They do not realize it is us, that we are the same,” she said sadly. “What happened in those years between? How did they lose all of this? Lose their connection to us?”
“No one knows for sure.”
“But you can see in the Eysen.”
“That is . . . fluid.” He shook his head. “It’s impossible to say with certainty.”
“But you have a theory.”
“Everyone has a theory.”
“I’m interested in yours.”
“Something happened,
” Trynn began. “In the millions of years between now and then . . . something connected to the Terminus Doom. I believe it was a technology leak.” They found a large, smooth boulder to sit on.
“A what?”
“Technology leak, meaning someone went too far and we lost control. We lost ourselves . . . ”
“The Circle thinks it was you?”
He shook his head again. “No, they don’t even know about it.”
“But they will.”
Solas stretched out before them in the distance, shimmering buildings casting abstract shadows, streaks of light moving people within a spectrum blur.
“Yes. The predictive league—that’s their group studying the Doom—will soon get into the ‘Missing-Time.’” The ominous sounding term described the void between the end of the Cosegan’s near future, until views picked up again eleven million years ahead. It could not be seen inside the Eysen.
“And what will they find in the Missing-Time?” Shanoah asked.
“More reasons to be afraid.”
They emerged from the woods at a rocky beach, the ocean before them wild and endless. Trynn stared at Shanoah. Her short hair could’ve made her appear boyish if not for her large, beautiful eyes that seemed to convey all the dreams and power of the natural world. He’d always thought she looked as if she could fly. Something in her svelte, athletic frame exuded a wing-like presence.
It is fitting that she will soon soar into space, beyond the realms Cosegans had explored up until then.
“Don’t go,” he whispered to her, the pink glow of the ocean sunset giving her an even more ethereal appearance than usual.
“We’re not going through this again,” she said, her quiet voice filled with sweet patience. “You know I must go.”
“I don’t know that,” he said, growing louder. “We don’t even know if the Imazes are right. They can go without you. There are enough volunteers.”
“But it is my program,” she said, sitting down on a fallen tree, carved ornately by some forgotten artisan. “And we are right.”
The sun slipped into the frothy water, sending more orange into the pink hues. She paused, wanting to say so much more, trying not to be hurt that he would even suggest she stay behind while others worked to prove her theory, to save their civilization. He had asked it before, many times. Even demanded it once. But this time felt different, and she didn’t know why. Perhaps it was the intimate setting, or the imminent countdown which would soon begin.
It might even be my own fears, she thought, admitting to herself that she was not the fearless explorer many believed her to be.
“I’m scared,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear her.
“I know.” He pressed closer, putting his arm around her. “So am I.”
She knew that too. He was afraid not just for her mission, but for his own. With everything at stake, they resisted their love, and that was what frightened them both the most. The odds said they would never see each other again once she left, but they didn’t believe that—they couldn’t believe that. They knew that they would. They counted on it, knowing each could save the other.
Each could save the other . . . they could only be saved by each other.
“Once the countdown begins . . . ” he said.
She put her finger on his lips. Even with her greatest accomplishment so close to fruition, her heart was torn at the crushing thought of losing him. Trynn kissed her. It was a long, stirring kiss that lasted minutes and spoke of eternity in its warmth. A kiss they knew would have to last them for longer than imaginable.
Finally, they released, and he spoke again.
“I am close.”
She knew he meant the Eysen. Even to speak of it was illegal. The Circle had deemed it forbidden. They had backed the Imazes. Shanoah had been devastated when they’d ruled against Trynn, and yet she agreed with their decision. He had been counting on The Circle deciding to pursue three paths to increase their chances, but too much damage had been done in the past by delving into the future. The Circle was afraid.
“They will catch you,” she said, “and then what?”
“I am careful,” he assured her.
“You are not.”
For an instant, he almost laughed. She knew him so well. Instead, he grimaced. “I wish there was time to be careful.”
Five
They called themselves globe runners because they moved precious amounts of globotite. Originally, the job had been legal, as they filled the supply routes for the many Eysen makers and other technologies that required the rare air mineral. However, after the discovery of the Terminus Doom, the need for globotite grew massively, causing its value to rise to insane levels.
Once The Circle decreed Eysens were no longer to be used for far future manipulations, and sought to control the market in the mineral, things radically changed, and the situation became much more dangerous.
On a tall stone column rimmed with vegetation, Julae crawled onto an edgy outcropping partially concealed by the angle of her position, shadows, and a bit of an old relent long bush. She surveyed the area, staring carefully back the way she’d come, and spotted two guardians.
They must have Etheren blood, she thought again, frustrated by not being able to shake them. The whole time, they’ve managed to stay close. Closer than the others. No normal Cosegan could maintain what I’ve just done.
She estimated they were just three or four minutes behind her.
They seem to know where I’m going.
Julae attempted to clear her mind. Can they have the skill? she wondered, thinking of “myree” the ability to read thoughts. Myree, sometimes just called “the skill,” was a rare trait outside the Etherens, and, in some cases, allowed highly skilled people to actually communicate using only their minds.
They could be reading my thoughts, but they don’t seem that good . . . Perhaps they are somehow seeing through my eyes.
She knew firsthand how difficult it was to track on the hard, bare stone, which was one of the reasons she’d chosen that route, but today her pursuers seemed to know where to go. She cleared her mind again, trying to both block their vision and, at the same time, access their thoughts.
Why can’t I read them?
She worried they could be utilizing blox, a highly practiced method to stop myree readers.
It could simply be because of my agitated state.
Then, a horrifying thought hit her.
What if their skills are better than mine?
“I don’t know,” she whispered to the winds, and began moving again. I’ve got to protect the mineral. She patted the globotite concealed within a small pouch that could easily fit into the palm of her hand. Its nearly weightless, yet incredibly strong, woven material meant the pouch was virtually indestructible. Its airtight seal and special technical formulations induced into the weave also made it waterproof, shockproof, and fireproof. Unless she got caught, the mineral was completely protected.
The men were closer now.
They’re going to catch me.
As on all her runs, she wore the pouch around her upper thigh. The priceless contents contained in her possession were enough to power three Eysens well into the far future. For normal use, the mineral in an amount that could fill the head of a pin would keep an Eysen operational for hundreds of years, and even then reuse and multifunction, with only a low depletion rate, was possible—meaning that with hardly any noticeable performance degradation, the globotite would last for millennia. However, to power an Eysen that would be inserted into the far future, much larger amounts were required. Those spheres consumed hundreds of thousands of times more concentrated levels, and the Eysens that were linked to them in the Cosegan labs used to monitor and contact far future machines would also require millions of times more globotite. And they would need to be replenished with fresh supplies much more often, at a minimum every few months, depending on how much contact and how deep into the far future they went.
&nbs
p; She heard them powering their weapons.
They’re so fast!
It was because of those inexhaustible globotite requirements that The Circle had been so effective in shutting off unauthorized Eysen programs. “Control globotite, control the Eysen makers,” the Arc had said many times. The guardians enforced the mandates because the fate of all humanity was at stake, and their trust in The Circle and its leader, the Arc, was absolute. The elders were wise, thoughtful, and focused. The guardians had, and would continue, to take all necessary action to enforce the bans and seize all globotite.
I’m going to have to protect the mineral, she thought, knowing she might have to die to do so. I must make sure they can’t get it.
Six
Markol stood before The Circle, trying not to be nervous. The Cosegan elders were intimidating enough, and one of them had long been his sponsor. However, that wasn’t the main source of his jittery nerves. Rather, it was the very nature of his presentation—The History and Workings of the Eysen - How the Device Relates to the Terminus Doom. The long title for his talk was an indication of how much was expected of him and the enormity riding on his explanations. “Just the future of our species,” he had mumbled to himself prior to entering the great hall, his lanky build not appearing as tall as usual. “And our very existence.”
As with most everything the Cosegans created, the great hall exuded light and demonstrated engineering and technological wizardry far beyond what their descendants would imagine possible eleven million years later. The hall’s proportions were difficult to fathom, and even more challenging to calculate. The techniques used to construct it meant that it was constantly in flux. Beyond the visible wavelengths, infrareds acted as a kind of motor, but it was the photons that did most of the work. Nearly a million years earlier, Cosegans had unlocked interstellar and circumstellar molecular science and quantum chemistry, harnessed particles much smaller than quarks, wrestled control of quantum vacuum plasma, and essentially learned to build with starlight.