Time Virus

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Date: Launch minus 15 months
Location: Quintana Roo, Mexico

“Yes, Mom. I’ll try to call home more often. It’s just that we’re so busy here. You wouldn’t believe the amount of equipment that the government has shipped in. The pit is now nearly four miles deep and ten miles across. Whatever it is, I hope we find it soon or none of this will have mattered.”

Allison was eventually able to get away from her mother’s daily call and get back to work. Even though she was a relatively junior archeologist, she had been the one on-site that had noticed the time anomaly. She was also one of relatively few that had unearthed a radioactive fossil from the past. If nothing else, she seemed to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time.

Her participation in the current dig had been mandated from the very highest authority.

She stood on the edge of the colossal hole that was being dug because of her. The young woman felt a twinge of guilt knowing that her phone call had resulted in this scar that was now easily visible from space. At the same time, no one was complaining about the environmental impact. Save Earth and worry about the battle scars latter. That was the unspoken schedule of events.

Her observations with regards to counter-directional time effects turned out to be spot-on. The plant, the spider and the professor had all regressed. The temporal effect seemed to have ebbs and flows. When the word got out about the fountain of youth, people flocked from all over the world; and nothing happened. Then one day, a young boy with a badly burned face from an accident the previous year came up on a pilgrimage. By then the military had taken over and kept people away. Somehow, he had sneaked in. When they found him, he was a perfectly normal boy, but the scarring was gone. It was as if it had never been there. The secret was out and security had been tightened.

Early attempts to measure the tachyon flows were crude. Today, atomic clocks were used. When they indicated that time had reversed, the dig was evacuated. They didn’t want to have their workforce turn into a bunch of children to small to handle the large equipment. A pattern was starting to take shape. There would be about three hours of forward time followed by five minutes of backwards time.

They knew what they were after now. It was a tachyon transceiver; something capable of both receiving and transmitting tachyons. Some genius came up with the idea of an atomic clock at the bottom of the hole and one at the top. Whichever one changed direction first would indicate the direction of tachyon flow. Sometimes the most complicated problems had the easiest solutions.

As the diggers dug, NASA was preparing to pepper the edge of space with mini-atomic clocks. The hope was to fine tune the direction of tachyon flow. Affected clocks would allow scientists on Earth to simply connect the dots. They would then follow the stream straight out into space and see what the flow was pointing to. Hopefully there would be a plant or star system they could blame. No one knew what would happen after that.

Date: Infinity
Location: Null Space

Neo-Jason’s compartmentalized mind coalesced into a single entity in preparation for whatever entered this current reality of nothingness.

The white door and two chairs appeared out of nowhere. Neo-Jason stood fast. More data was needed before he could evaluate his situation.

The door opened and a tall man walked in. His teeth were bright white against the darkness of his black skin. He had no hair on his head and was of indeterminate age. The man walked directly up to Neo-Jason and smiled as he extended his hand.

“Hello. My name is Magnus. Please have a seat,” he said with a voice that was deep and rich. Neo-Jason felt all anxiety leave him as he sat down.

“Who are you and where is this place?” Neo-Jason asked. He was surprised by how calm he sounded and felt. Something ancient within him screamed with fear; the fear of reality disassociating itself with present conditions. Neo-Jason soothed that background fear and embraced the moment. There was time to relax. He could feel it. The need to rush from one event to the next was washed away. Saving Earth was an event external to this place. It did not have to happen this moment because “this moment” had no meaning. There was plenty of time; there always had been.

“You are here and this place is now,” Magnus said.

“I know that but, where is here and when is now? Please, I need to understand what is going on.”

Magnus smiled. “Jason, and I call you that for convenience alone since you are much more than Jason, I know what it is you are asking. I will try to wade slowly into an answer that you can understand. I say this because your ability, in your present form, to understand everything is far from sufficient.”

Jason sat back and said, “Give me what you can. I will let you know when I have had enough.”

Magnus took a drink out of the cup that had suddenly appeared in his hand and started, “In the beginning …”

Word count 903
Running total 4,680

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