Reconception: The Fall (16 page)

Time travel was possible because of the existence of
a higher dimension within the multiverse, which Jersey was calling
the Logos. This Logos is composed of thought, and contains the
original, unchanged patterns of the universe, those that were
conceived at its birth. Within it, all things are as they should
be. It is Plato’s ideal—the perfect universe. Everything that
exists in four-dimensional space-time tries to conform to its
pattern in the Logos.

But ordinary reality can be, and is, influenced by
the forces within it. The universe is fluid and responds to the
free will of intelligent life. Whenever we make a choice that is
different than the one we would make if we were conscious within
the Logos, we change the evolution of our reality and its future.
Because of the existence of the Logos, accessible from any
dimension within the multiverse, this free will can also operate
outside of linear time.

It had long been thought that we could not go back
into the past because of the paradoxes that would occur if we were
to change the past and affect the future. But the Logos made such
travel possible. If we were to go back into the past and kill our
father, for instance, we would still exist within a universe
accessible to the Logos to go back into the past, although we would
disappear in the future of our original reality.

This made it very dangerous to travel in time,
because changes in the past could drastically affect the present,
and Jersey’s caution in choosing an inanimate object to make the
trip, was justified.

For his purposes, the existence of the Logos had
other ramifications. Because it is a higher, non-material dimension
that has access to all space/time points in our dimension, all that
is necessary to travel in time or in space is the means to
penetrate the Logos. Jersey’s machine used this dimension as a kind
of shortcut.

While traveling with Morgan, he’d had plenty of time
to think this procedure over and actually doing it at last felt
rehearsed. Carefully, he placed the quartz crystal he’d decided on
as his first time-traveling object into the chamber of the machine,
threw the switches and watched the computer displays. The results
were instantaneous, and Jersey grinned as he observed the piece of
quartz suddenly appear embedded in the polished stone floor of his
lab as if it had been there for nearly one hundred years. In fact,
if he hadn’t seen it appear with his own eyes, he would probably
recall that it had always been there.

“I did it!” he hummed, doing a little dance around
the lab. “I did it!”

Evie adjusted Teller’s pillow and smiled into her
dark eyes. “It’s amazing how quickly you’ve recovered,” she
said.

“What did you give me?”

“Hmm, that’s the thing. By the time we got back
here, you’d already passed the crisis. The antibiotics had little
effect, and the only hope I had was here in this lab. Your leg was
festering; gangrene had already begun. But you showed us.”

“I guess that those of us who have survived, have
done so because we’re strong.” Teller’s smile was weary.

Evie sat down next to the mountain woman and took
her rough hand in her own smooth ones. “Teller, I thought you were
going to die. I would have done anything to prevent it, but there
was nothing I could do. I think you’ve taught me to believe in
God.” She laughed at herself, but Teller didn’t laugh.

“And don’t forget Goddess,” she whispered.

In the hallway Evie spotted Eagle heading toward the
Quad and hurried to catch up with him. “Hey,” she smiled, “where
are you going?”

“To get some of that tasteless crud you call coffee.
Do you want to come with me?”

Evie took his hand and walked with him. “Teller’s
doing so well; I think she’ll be able to travel in just a few more
days. I know you want to go home.”

Eagle stopped walking and looked into her eyes. “And
you and Garrett? Will you be staying here?”

“Only if we have nowhere else to go.”

A slow smile lit Eagle’s eyes and spread to his
mouth. He squeezed her hand and nodded.

“Eagle? About what happened at the river ....”

He put a finger to his lips. “Shhh ... I know you
were overwhelmed. And after being in this place, I understand your
reaction to nature better than you can imagine. You and Garrett ...
you’re meant to be together. We can forget what never
happened.”

Evie looked into his eyes and nodded. “Thank you for
being so wise.”

They were laughing when Jersey Lipton came around the
bend and bumped into Evie.

“Jersey!” she said. “I’m so glad to see you. I’ve
been meaning to talk to you about your trip Outside. What did you
think of it? I mean, besides getting lost.”

“Lost? Oh yes, that’s right. Morgan said we were
lost.”

Evie looked at him curiously. He wasn’t the type to
dissemble. “Weren’t you?”

A kind of spiritual agony gripped Jersey’s soul at
the look in Evie’s eyes. He wanted to tell her what had really
happened, but he was afraid of Morgan and what Morgan would do.
Instead of answering he grunted and tried to push past Evie and her
friend.

“Wait a minute, Jersey!” Evie took the older man’s
arm and wouldn’t let him pass. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Nothing is going on. Well, no, that’s not
quite true. I’ve just done something incredible. After fifteen
years of research, I’ve sent an object into the past! I’ve broken
the time barrier! Evie, can you imagine the possibilities?”

Evie looked at the physicist with mounting
apprehension. His excitement had an edge to it that she’d never
seen in him before. Not that they’d ever been close, but he had
been her neighbor for all her life. “That’s wonderful! Oh, I’m
being so rude. Jersey Lipton, this is Eye of Eagle of the Mountain
People. Eagle, this is Jersey. He’s a physicist.”

“Who’s broken the time barrier. Wow! That’s quite an
accomplishment.”

“Mountain People?” Jersey responded. “What are the
Mountain People?”

“Oh Jersey, it’s so exciting! There
are people who live Outside. Eagle’s people are just one group of
many who have managed to survive the holocaust of the
21
^st
century. They have a wonderful culture.”

Jersey staggered and leaned against the wall. “There
are people Outside? I didn’t see any sign of people!”

The anguish in his voice echoed off the walls of the
hallway.

“What is it?” Evie took his hand and looked into his
eyes. “What’s happened?”

A tear escaped the physicist’s eye and rolled down
his craggy cheek. He shook his head from side to side, trying to
regain his balance and his perspective. “Morgan.” He whispered.
“Morgan intends to destroy it all ... and I’ve given him the
means.”

Morgan had almost completed the uplink to the
satellite when the noise in the hallway outside the lab interrupted
his intense concentration. Was that shouting? Annoyed, he got up
and opened the door. The shouting came to an abrupt halt as he
faced the livid blue eyes and pointing finger of Evelyn
Chandler.

“You. Stop what you’re doing,” she ordered.

Morgan smiled. “And what would that be?”

“Don’t play the innocent with me, Morgan. I know
you, and I’m telling you if you don’t stop what you’re doing ...
now, you will be in more trouble than you have ever imagined.”

Her words, so threatening from one so small and
powerless, made Morgan’s smile grow even brighter. And although
Garrett Walker and that mountain creature stood on either side of
Evie, ready to back her up with physical force, Morgan knew that as
long as he reacted quickly and decisively, he would remain in
charge. Evie’s words hung in the air, but instead of answering,
Morgan signaled to his contingent of armed guards. Seven guns were
cocked and brought to bear on the three activists.

“Things will be changing around here, and one of the
first changes will be in our system of government. From now on, I’m
in charge. This is my lab. This is my hallway. You three can
evacuate this space immediately, or I can have you held prisoner
until some later date.” Morgan felt enormous, as if he’d left his
body and become the habitat itself. At last, there would be no more
manipulation and persuasion, no more games. From now on, he would
rule by force.

One of the guards stuck a gun in Garrett’s back and
prodded him to move down the hall and away from Morgan’s door. Evie
started to speak, then thought better of it as the other guards
followed the first, jabbing a gun into her side and urging her to
retreat.

She had one last look at Morgan’s triumphant eyes
before the door to the hallway was slammed in her face.

They had no guns, but they did have
intelligence. Their contingency plan should Morgan refuse to hear
them had already been worked out, and before the dust of that
confrontation had settled, Evie, Garret, and Eagle were racing down
the corridors of the 4
^th
quadrant, heading for the secret door that would
lead them outside.

Most of the habitat was hidden beneath the ground,
but satellite communications were not. The dish, of necessity
exposed to the sky, was accessible to their desperate attack.
Climbing the hills and cutting the wires to the antenna took only
minutes. Then they set to work removing parts of the hardware
itself. Garret pulled out a circuit board and crushed it under his
foot while Evie and Eagle ripped into the innards of the
directional array.

East USA Habitat: 2128

“Morgan’s resourceful,” Garret worried, “He’ll find
replacement parts somewhere.”

Evie nodded. They’d done considerable damage, and
hadn’t left the scene until one of Morgan’s guards had taken a shot
at them, but Garret was right. The habitat had redundant systems
for everything, and plenty of parts that could be jury-rigged to do
what Morgan wanted to do. “Well, at least we’ve slowed him
down.”

“And we’ve bought ourselves a little time. But what
can we do? He’s got guns. He’s got people. We never had a clue what
he was up to.”

“Nobody did ... Oh Garret, all those people
....”

Garret took his head out of his hands and looked at
Evie. “Listen to me. We don’t have much time: two weeks, three ...
and in the end, we’re still going to lose. Because he’s got a power
base that he’s been building for years. Now that he’s been outside,
he’s got the weapons to enforce it too. Evie, he’s going to do it.
And there’s nothing we can do to stop him.”

Eagle, entering the lab, heard the last of this
speech. “Well, there’s something I can do,” he stated.

Evie looked at her lab, at the experiments concluded
and those underway, and wondered how it had all gotten so suddenly
out of hand. They had been doing so well, first with superfood and
then with homo superior. Oh, she knew it was hubris, but it could
be done. So she and Garret had done it. They had engineered the DNA
that would grow into highly adaptable and long-lived human beings,
as well as the plant that would support the growth and development
of the embryos. But now, even if they wanted to go ahead with it,
there would be no single uncontaminated spot on earth that could be
their garden.

She stared at Eagle as he pulled a long knife from
the belt crossing his back and studied the blade in the light.
“What did you say?”

“I said there’s something I can do, and I intend to
do it.” Slipping the knife back into its sheath, Eagle looked
intently into Evie’s eyes and then Garret’s. Without another word,
he left the lab.

East USA Habitat: 2128

Violence was unknown in the habitat. For nearly a
century the people who lived there had done so in peace. So the
quick burst of machine gun fire that erupted in the Quad went
unnoticed at first. Initially, people thought it was some kind of
equipment breakdown, and it wasn’t until they saw the blood and the
bodies that they realized that something new and terrible had found
its way into their peaceful home.

Three men with guns had taken to following Morgan
around from place to place, and when Eagle approached him, they had
been on guard. The Mountain man looked as if he had something to
say, but then he suddenly drew a knife from the sheath at his back
and lunged at John Morgan’s throat.

East USA Habitat: 2128

Eagle knew that he was making a last ditch stand,
but there really was no other way to get near Morgan who was always
surrounded by guards. That’s where Teller came in. Though somewhat
weakened by her injury, her recuperative powers were amazing, and
she had been as ready as he to act against Morgan before he could
repair communications and launch his weapons.

Although Evie and Garret had tried to stir up the
other inhabitants of the habitat, they were too passive to be
effective. There was no one else equipped to take action.

The plan was simple. Eagle would attack Morgan, and
while the guards were protecting his front, Teller would hit him
from behind. She was dressed as one of them, and barely noticeable
except for her dark complexion and flashing eyes.

Teller moved toward the center of the crowd where
Morgan, drunk with power, was holding court. He’s foolish not to
keep his back to a wall, Teller thought, and then moved to take
advantage of this weakness. She was in place when Eagle pushed his
way toward Morgan as if he meant to speak to him, and then without
warning aimed a blade at his throat.

Before it could penetrate, the machine guns were
spitting bullets into his fragile flesh. But Teller didn’t stop to
watch. She leaped forward, her knife extended, and slammed it into
Morgan’s back. It slid off one of his ribs and missed the heart, so
she pulled it out again and was poised to ram it into him again,
when the guns came up and tore her to pieces.