Moonliner: No Stone Unturned (30 page)

Within seconds he finds himself breathing in synch with his own voice repeatedly playing over the sound system, amidst relaxing deep forest sounds.

              “Take a deep, breath.”

              “Take a deep, breath,” his voice repeats.

Moonliner
5:08

Cedric can smell the fresh forest air and its increased oxygen.  He walks along a winding path that takes him through brilliant sunbeams and between mighty, towering trees.  The wind is blowing but it’s a warm and comforting.  A chipmunk cackles at him, then runs off into the trees.

Cedric reaches a point where the path circumvents a large tree, causing the trail to disappear from his sight.  Suddenly, he sees Nikki lean around the trunk of the massive tree.  She smiles, then disappears, but can be heard giggling.  Cedric approaches the tree slowly.  Nikki leans around it again, this time calling his name. 

              “Cedric,” she says with a playful laugh, then vanishes again.

Cedric walks around the tree but doesn’t see her.  The path is empty.  He then spots her well off to the right of the path, sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree.  He makes his way over to the tree and sits down beside her.

This time he just sits there with her, careful not to say or do anything.  He wants to ride this dream out.  He looks down at the ground and avoids focusing on any specific object.  He keeps his mind clear and his vision blurred.

She smiles.

              “Is there a way back?” she asks him. 

Cedric is shocked that she has spoken, now knowing he’s deep within his dream.  He’s afraid to speak, but can’t leave her question unanswered.

              “Is there a way back from where?” he asks.

Nikki looks up at an open patch of blue sky and smiles.  The moon rests right above the treeline, white and opaque, like a light cloud. 

Cedric’s lies on the sofa, now wide awake.  His dreams are back.  He sits up and excitedly begins examining his orbiting graphs again..

Moonliner
5:09

Trying to remain stealth, Cedric makes his way across campus to the media library, where he spends some time looking through digital files.  The library has the most sensitive central-information system in the city.  Cedric needs to access it to complete his postulations, although it does make him feel a bit like he’s cheating on Phaedra.

He logs in and accesses the system’s theoretical physics mode.  He spends a lot of time looking at three dimensional models and graphs showing Fibonacci progressions within waves.  He studies variations between waves’ peaks and troughs, looking for patterns.  At times he thinks he can really see something, but like the colors of an aurora those glimpses tend to quickly fade.

Before closing out of theoretical mode, Cedric decides to give the city’s greatest mastermind a few off the cuff questions.

              “Is time real?” he types into the system’s informer.

              “In and of itself, time is not real.  It occupies no physical dimension, nor does it have any weight,” the system responds.  “It is, however, a real reflection of matter in motion, reflecting observable patterns that without time would remain undetected.  Thus, though intangible, time is very real.”

              “Is time travel possible?” Cedric asks.

              “It remains unknown,” the system answers.

Cedric shifts the system into historical mode and browses the year 2014.  He looks up the NeoTech tradeshow and comes across several pictures taken during the tradeshow.  There are people walking around, booth to booth.  There are a few small group photos, but nothing to really go on.  Cedric has a fear of finding out his new found friend’s name, but likes to browse tradeshow pics just knowing he’s connected to the event.  He looks right at Beau in one of the images, but has no idea.  Ironically, the commemorative coin is sitting atop a stack of materials, on a chair beside Beau, clearly visible in the photo.

Cedric takes a long look through the year’s major headlines and events, taking in as much history he can. 

He collapses all graphs and images and puts his devices away.  Before exiting the building, he stops by the front desk and asks to check out a hylo-light, two stage signal booster from the media room.  The woman at the desk asks to see his I.D., then quickly bioscans Cedric to verify him.  She tells him the item has been flagged by the department, meaning he can check it out but it will be reported back to them.

Cedric nods, takes the booster, and leaves the library.  As he walks across the campus quad, he suddenly sees Dr. Ridpath standing in front of the Communications Department.  He hasn’t seen Cedric.  Not wanting to be seen, Cedric ducks into the school’s Museum of Natural History & Science.  Once inside, he finds himself face to face with the University’s newest edition; a one-hundred and fifty-four million year old, nine-meter allosaurus.  Cedric stands in sheer awe.  How fitting, he thinks, to be face to face with something that lived and breathed so long ago.  To think, we walk across the same soil, drink the same water, and breathe the same air as this mighty beast, only at different times. 

Cedric looks carefully at the bones, so well preserved.  This thing could and would rip his head off were it alive today.  It still has almost all of its teeth too.  What horrific suffering this planet has witnessed, he thinks.  Life was then and still is pitted against itself in a system where organisms have to devour other organisms to survive.  Time may have refined the game, Cedric thinks, but it remains a game just the same.

There’s a little button to push for a narrative video on this dinosaur.  Cedric pushes it and learns this particular allosaurus was found near the Wyoming-Utah boarder, along the Morrison Foundation, a famous dinosaur highway that’s well preserved in sedimentary rock from the Jurassic period.  It died a tragic death after apparently falling into a large bog that claimed the lives of hundreds of animals over time.

              “Was the sun shining that day?” Cedric asks the dinosaur.  “Was everything going your way?  Did you die quickly?” he asks.  The dinosaur does not respond.

Cedric ponders time, and where someone would have to be in the universe to watch this dinosaur fall into the bog live, right now, assuming that person had some super-massive telescope.  One hundred and fifty-four million light years puts you well outside our galaxy, but still within the confines of neighboring galaxies.  In fact, you could watch our sun, this planet, the moon, and our entire solar system form right now and still not be half way across the universe from here. 

              “I wish I could help you,” Cedric tells the bones of the beast; “but I wouldn’t even know where to start.” His dinosaur will just have to wait, even longer.

He leaves the dinosaur and the museum, takes a good look around for Dr. Ridpath, then zips across the grass to avoid student traffic, only on campus for the booster.  On his way back to the Skytrain station he thinks again of the dinosaur and wonders how much distance it would take to transmit one of his laser signals back to the day that allosaurus fell into the bog.  Oh well, he thinks to himself, what good is a message that can’t be received?

Moonliner
5:10

Cedric stands near the keyhole-shaped entrance to the Sun Yat-Sen garden, in the International District, waiting to meet Chara and Oriona during their lunch break.  A few minutes early, he looks through the portal and into the Chinese gardens.  Still being outside, the contrast between the modern and ancient world is stark.  Just outside the garden you have multi-colored, solar powered LED lights embedded in everything.  Vending machines line the cobblestone street.  Parked scooters line the garden’s exterior wall.  Through the keyhole portal, however, Cedric sees another time, perfectly preserved.  He sees why Nikki would frequent this place. 

Oriona and Chara chat as they round the corner of Carrall Street and approach the entrance to the garden.  Cedric smiles and waves to them as the women approach.  They wave back, excited to see him again.  He gives each of them a quick hug.  They all stand and stare at each other, speechless for a moment. 

              “Well, can I get a tour of the garden?” Cedric asks them, knowing how they used to come here with Nikki.

              “Haven’t you ever been here?” Oriona asks.

              “No, I’m ashamed to admit,” Cedric says; “Nikki and I talked a lot about coming here together, but just never did,” he tells them.  “Maybe it was her place to hide from me?” 

The women smile.  Then the three of them step into the garden, essentially stepping out of 2069 and into the fifteenth century Ming dynasty.  It is so peaceful inside, drowning out a lot of the city noise.  A huge pond fills the center, covered with large lilypads.  Carpe swim in the pond and around the garden’s small streams.  Jade colored water flows around the weathered Ti Hu rocks, creating a serene, peaceful scene.  Time stands perfectly still here.

A low flying Airbus glides silently and slowly over the park, momentarily polluting the scene with modern technology.  Chara, Oriona, and Cedric follow a small winding path that leads them between exotic pine and cypress trees, over an arched, stone footbridge, through a grove of miniature rhododendrons and bamboo trees, and finally to a gazeebo in the center of the pond.  They sit down to rest and take in the garden’s view.