Surfacing (Spark Saga) (22 page)

             
I recall setting Tess up with the simulator, before she returned to the scene of her accident and rescued Dani.  She was afraid, and then when she came to me and begged to go back, I’d warned her about the dangers of changing the past…the impact it would have on the future.  The impact had been Dani…and Dani’s presence had, indeed, changed the future for Tess and me.  While Tess was lost in a coma for four years, Dani was still alive, and we bonded, our friendship growing and growing until it became something more—whether by my own seeking of it or simply the natural progression of things.  I have to wonder…if things had remained as they ended up—with Tess in the coma and Dani alive, without the alternate series of events that brought Tess and I together in the first place—would Dani and I have been destined to be together?  Or was my father’s research right all along?  That it was Tess, all along?

             
Negative capability… remember?

             
Was Dani brought back to secure the presence of doubt in my mind?  To be a realistic obstacle to the relationship with Tess that was written in the stars?  Who’s to say?  What if my father is wrong?  Add that to my list of things I don’t know…

             
Things you don’t know.  Mysteries.  Uncertainties.  It’s all part of life…the sooner you get comfortable with that, the sooner you will find true happiness.

             
I’m starting to get annoyed.  Annoyed that my father spent all this time on a project that ends in a big question mark.  Annoyed that I don’t understand.  Annoyed that I’m conflicted in what I want. 

             
Sometimes I think that there are parts of
my
memory that are incomplete.  It would make sense.  If they were complete, then I would know the answers.  I would know…how I really feel about Tess and Dani, from the beginning. 

             
Memory is never complete…it exists as fragments, only to be revived when prompted by another memory, some sensation that created an emotion.

             
Ok, that definitely didn’t come from my science book.

             
If that is so, then there are indeed missing pieces.  Of course.  I certainly don’t remember everything from when I was a child, for example.  I remember specific things…details, but it is always fragmented.  Is this a phenomenon specific to childhood, or does it continue throughout adulthood? 

             
Assuming that it does, I realize there is only one thing that I can do, right now, that will help me figure all this out. 

             
The simulator.  The big question being…what moment will I choose to relive?

              In a moment of decisive action, I put on my shoes and head downstairs.  I tell my mom I’m going out with the guys and get in my car, with only one destination in mind:  My father’s laboratory.

             
It is dusk.  The building has been up for rent or sale now for about a year, with no prospects.  My mother has kept the electricity on to maintain the climate inside the building.  She’s mentioned a few times that we need to go over sometime and clear out my father’s things, but for some reason it never happens.  It’s as if she wants to keep some part of my father alive…not to disturb what he left—the one significant thing that he left, besides her and I.  She doesn’t understand any of it.  We’ve never discussed his research in detail.  I’m not even sure she knows anything about it.

             
Just before I get out of the car, I stop to check my email on my phone.  There is a message from my father:

September 11, 2012

TO:
                            Zach Webb

FROM:
              E.G.W.

RE:
                            What you need to know

My dear Zach,

I am aware of your confusion, and I worry about how you will proceed.  Will you trust me?  Everything you need to know is outside of that building.  Truth be known, I’d prefer the contents of my files to be destroyed along with the chips.  It will only bring more confusion.  The heart prevails, above all things…above science and measurement…beyond time.  And so I ask again, will you trust me?  Download the geocaching app from the following link, and follow the clues.

Affectionately,

E.G.W.

Geocaching?  Isn’t that what Tess was talking to me about the other day?  What the heck.  I start searching for the app while listening to music on my car stereo.  Once downloaded, it tells me that there is a geocache nearby.  It takes me a few minutes to figure out what to do, but I am supposed to follow the blue dot.  The blue dot, apparently, has all the answers…at least the beginning of all the answers I need.

I get out of the car, my eyes fixed on the blue dot…walking closer to the building.  Wait—I thought everything I needed was outside the building?  Anyway, I move closer, and the dot flashes faster and faster, indicating that I am getting close. 

I notice that there is a clue on the app, so I load it up. 

It reads:

Mortal alliteration will give you piece of mind.

It’s cryptic.  Great.  I am not good at this sort of thing at all, and yet, I have a momentary flashback to my comments in English class today.  Maybe I’m not that bad at interpreting things, after all.  Ok.  I will start with the word I don’t know. 
Alliteration. 
I Google it and find that it is a convention in poetry where consonant sounds are repeated.  I look around, as if I might see a book of poetry lying around open somewhere, with the answer in it.

Feeling like an idiot, I just stand there, staring at those words. 
Mortal
, of course, means death.  So I’m dealing with some poem about death that uses alliteration?  And why is
piece
spelled the way it is?  Shouldn’t it be
peace
?  Out of curiosity, I type “mortal alliteration” into my browser.  Why not?  The search reveals nothing.

Ok… approaching this from a literal standpoint, how about dead poetry?  Cool idea, but it doesn’t help.

Almost immediately, there is another message from my father:

September 11, 2012

TO:
                            Zach Webb

FROM:
              E.G.W.

RE:
                            What you need to know

You may be wondering why I am now sending messages via email, rather than mindspeak (my non-technical term for the other method).  Quite simply, it’s because you are beginning to get confused and I do not want to upset you. 

Let me help you with the clue.  The alliteration refers to the word “mortal” itself and the place where the clue will be found…in this case, the mortar.

Good luck.

Affectionately,

E.G.W.

In the mortar?  Of course, the bricks on the outside of the building.  And now that I notice they are crumbling apart, the word
piece
makes perfect sense.  I am looking for a hole where a piece has fallen away, and there will be the clue.

I find yet another clue, hidden inside a small cylinder.  Presumably, the clue will lead me to another location.  I find myself wondering how long this search and find game will go on, but then I remember that
it will help me discover everything I need to know, so it doesn’t really matter how long it takes.  I’m in it for the goal:  Understanding, knowledge, and most of all… peace.

             
When I was eight years old, my father got me a microscope for my birthday.  I tore open the package with abandon and immediately went to work setting it up.  My father sat in his chair watching me with a smile, occasionally nodding in approval.  After a few minutes, he plucked a hair from the arm of his sweater and held it out.

             
“Here, try looking at this,” he said.

             
I was skeptical, but I took it anyway, and carefully placed it on the slide.  I got frustrated after five minutes of fiddling with the thing, trying to see it.  Finally, my father knelt beside me and made some adjustments.  “Now try.”

             
It was nothing short of amazing.  The hair, magnified four hundred times its size, looked like a ridged, flaky stem from some dried up plant.  The edges of the hair were clearly defined, and the texture was uniform.  I simply couldn’t believe what I was seeing, that a tiny sliver of hair looked like that.

             
“Well, what do you think?”  He asked.

             
“It’s really cool,” I replied, my mind beginning to race with thoughts of what else I could stick under the microscope.

             
“The universe is an enormous, mysterious place,” he said.  “There are many things we will never see with our eyes.  And yet, here it is.”

              This is my thought, as I stand next to my father’s grave in the dark, with a flashlight, examining the next clue.

             
It cannot be a coincidence that this is where Cricket and Tess were here that day my mother and I planted the flowers.  Tess and Cricket had been looking for something, and the thought occurs to me—as ridiculous as it seems—that perhaps they were looking for the same thing I am now.

             
But it seems this is the end of the journey.  I can’t find any geocache, and I decide that it must be underground—buried, perhaps, with my father himself.  I am convinced that this is something my father dreamed up before he passed away, but why?  And, given the ability he has to communicate with me now, it makes even less sense.

             
I form a solid question in my mind, even saying it out loud in earnest, in hopes that my father will deliver me this one truth:  Is all of this simply a way to get Tess and I together somehow?  The seeming coincidence of this geocaching adventure?  I think of that hair in the microscope, how something seemingly simple is so vastly complicated.  Like this.  Like my life. 

             
The human hair, coincidentally, is the only part of the human body that keeps growing once deceased.

             
What.  The.  Heck?  I shudder with the thought. 

             
So vastly complicated, this life.  Things we never imagined possible.

             
Suddenly, I notice a car idling by slowly, and I get spooked, quickly heading back.  If everything I need to know is outside of my father’s research lab, I’m certainly not going to discover it all tonight.

             
As I head to my car, I run through my mind how I am going to approach Tess with this.  There must be a way, and I will find it.  It seems like the right direction to go. 

             
As I start up my car, my phone beeps with a message from my father:

September 11, 2012

TO:
                            Zach Webb

FROM:
              E.G.W.

RE:
                            What you need to know

You are proceeding well, my son.  Just remember, when you find what you are looking for, you must destroy this terrible truth.

Terrible truth? 
I assume he’s referring to the research and the chips, but it’s an odd way of putting it, especially when so many of his recent messages include his lofty ideas about truth and belief.  At any rate, I have to wonder…is it really all that terrible?  I mean, the man discovered time travel.  That’s pretty awesome if you ask me.

No, there must be a reason, some explanation.  Has my father had some bad experience with it?  Something that he dare not tell me, but that so impacted him as to destroy his own work?  I think back to the Time Traveler, who reached so far into the future that he saw the death of the earth itself.  How terrifying would that be?  Just to know that yes, one day, the earth will be no more…and that even knowing you won’t live to see it, just the realization of its awful fate.  Could it be that my father has witnessed something similar?  Perhaps he somehow caused his own death.  It’s a random thought, but I mean, anything is truly possible at this point.  Time travel shook up the entire realm of expected results.

Perhaps the best approach is to be direct.

September 11, 2012

TO:
                            E.G.W.

FROM:
              Zach Webb

RE:
                            What you need to know

Why is your research a “terrible truth
?”  Further, I am curious to know your personal experience with your research—not as a scientist, but as a time traveler.  I know you took at least one journey into the future to plant your mind chip, but what others did you take?  Did you ever go to the past?  How far back is it possible to travel?  Is it scary?  I think I would like to do it, but I’m not sure.  Should I?  What do you suggest?