The Flight of the Silvers (17 page)

“New York,” said Zack.

“This is New York,” Quint replied with mild annoyance. “Hence the ‘Gotham.’ Anyway, on the fifth of October, 1912, at 5:52 in the morning, the entire—”

The Silvers gasped as a dome of white light erupted in the center of the city. It grew in all directions, devouring everything in its path. By the time Czerny paused the video, the dome had overtaken the scene, splitting the clouds and stretching deep across the landscape.

“We call it the Cataclysm,” Quint said. “A massive discharge of energy centered in northern Brooklyn, in the area once known as Winthrop Park. In five seconds, the burst expanded 4.7 miles in every direction, destroying 24 percent of Queens, 22 percent of Brooklyn, and 68 percent of Manhattan. Everything below the upper reaches of Central Park.”

Hannah and Theo covered their mouths. Amanda watched the screen in wincing anguish.

“How many people?”

“A little over two million,” Quint replied.

Mia clenched her jaw in tight suppression. She was a hairsbreadth away from bawling at the unbearable fragility of existence, but she didn’t want to cry. Not here. Not in front of Sterling Quint, a man who had a very cruel definition of “starting small.”

“To call this a transformational event would be an understatement,” he continued. “For America and the entire world, everything changed in an instant. Countless books have been written about the rippling effects of the Cataclysm—on culture, on politics, the economy. Those are all topics for another time. For now, I want to discuss how the event forever changed science.”

The projection advanced to sepia-toned photos of the altered New York landscape. A quarter skyline of Manhattan. A ten-story building, maimed at the base by a giant curved bite. A bird’s-eye view of Central Park, with a diagonal arc of wreckage separating the surviving greenery from acres upon acres of flat gray ash.

“As you can imagine, the mystery of the Cataclysm became a top priority for scientists worldwide. The explosion clearly wasn’t man-made, as the damage went far beyond the limits of any human weapon. It left no heat signature, no radioactive fallout. A person standing just five feet outside the blast radius could have gone on to live for decades. In fact, the last known survivor from that famous halo—an infant at the time—only recently passed away.”

The next image was an old photo of three pale men in lab coats, posing in front of an elaborate machine. David motioned to the one in the center.

“That’s Niels Bohr. He was my father’s idol.”

Quint smiled. “Mine as well. Though the cause of the Cataclysm has yet to be discovered, the energy itself was successfully reproduced by Bohr and his fellow Danish scientists in 1933. They called it the
femtekraft
, or ‘fifth force.’ Over the next two decades, it went on to adopt many other monikers. White force, whitewave, nivius, cretatis. In 1955, when its true nature was at long last discovered, it took on its final name. Temporis.”

The screen went blank. The overhead lights came on. The Silvers all winced in adjustment.

“Today we know enough about temporic energy to fill a library,” Quint declared. “And yet it’ll take a dozen more generations to get a true grasp of its nature. Simply put, the Danes had it right. Temporis is yet another governing force of the universe, the quantum building blocks of what we perceive as time. Though the cost was great, the Cataclysm triggered a scientific revolution like none other. We’ve acquired the means to bend time like a prism bends light. More than bend it, we can stretch it, harden it, even reverse it. Through temporis, we’ve accessed the watchworks of existence itself.”

Quint could see from his guests’ fidgety stances that he was flustering them. He swallowed the rest of his spiel and took the shortcut back to their concerns.

“For the last few weeks, you’ve wondered if you’re unique in your abilities. The answer is both yes and no. With the exception of one of you, all the amazing things you can do have been done countless times before by others, myself included. The difference between you and us, what truly makes you special, is your innate ability to wield temporis.”

He gestured at the showcase of gadgets behind him. “The rest of us need machines.”

Quint moved to the left side of the room and opened the door of a boxy white appliance that looked like a quarter-scale clothes dryer. He retrieved a banana from inside and tossed it at Zack.

“Before I demonstrate the first device, would you do me a favor and age that?”

“Uh, okay.”

Though the act of reversing had become as simple as third-grade math, Zack had a trickier time sending objects the other way. He grimaced with effort. Soon the banana turned spotted, then brown, then pungently rotten. Quint directed him to put it back in the machine.

As Zack returned to his seat, Theo drank him in with saucer eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“I know. Trippy, isn’t it?”

Quint closed the door, then pressed a few buttons on the contraption’s keypad. The box quietly whirred.

“This machine is known as a rejuvenator or, informally, a juve. The technology was invented in 1975 but didn’t reach the consumer market until 1980. At first there were certain issues with tooping, which we can talk about another day.”

The juve let out a high
ding
. Quint popped the door, then brandished a perfect yellow banana to his audience.

“As you see, the device matches Zack’s talents by creating a localized field that reverses the flow of time. It can restore anything that fits inside it, though it does irreparable damage to electronic circuits and batteries. Its primary function is exactly what was demonstrated: the restoration of food. Today you’ll rarely find a kitchen without one.”

Zack wasn’t sure how to react. From the moment he gained control of his weirdness, he’d felt like a borderline superhero. Now he realized he was only as skilled as a common household appliance. He was as impressive as the hero who could turn bread into toast.

“Can it also advance an object’s timeline?” David asked.

“Yes. That feature’s used for accelerated defrosting and marinating.”

Amanda thought about the coffin-size device she’d noticed in the ambulance on her traumatic first day. “What about people? Couldn’t that same technology be used to heal?”

“Good question. There is indeed a device that works on the same principles. It’s called a reviver. They’re expensive and highly regulated. You need a special medical license to operate them.”

Zack snapped out of his dolor. “Wait a minute. If you guys have the technology to undo all the bad things that happen to people, wouldn’t that eliminate the nagging problem of, you know, death?”

Amanda nodded. “That’s what I was wondering.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Quint replied. “As human beings are far more complex than your average food product, there are risks in using temporis to revert people to a prior state—neurological issues, vascular problems, infertility. The further you bend the clock, the greater the chance of adverse effects. As a result, revivers are mostly limited to life-or-death situations, and usually for traumas that are less than twelve hours old. It’s certainly not a tool for fighting something like cancer.”

Mia raised her hand until Quint acknowledged her. “What about the recently deceased? I mean if someone died six hours ago and you reverse them seven hours . . .”

“Revivers can indeed restore the spark of life to a dead body, but not a dead brain. The temporis turns a corpse into a living vegetable, and even that typically lasts a couple of hours until death comes again. The technology gets more sophisticated each year, so who knows how long these limits will remain? I can say that revivers are much safer on animals. Veterinarians use them to extend the life of household pets.”

Hannah gaped with revelation. “Oh,
that’s
what it was.”

Upon receiving a roomful of glassy stares, she described the first person she met on this world, a pony-haired teenage activist who sat outside a supermarket, urging a stop to pet extensions. Hannah finally knew what the term meant, but she couldn’t understand the controversy.

“There are people out there who see all forms of time manipulation as unnatural,” Quint explained. “Even unholy. And then there are other, more rational individuals who simply believe that animals, like people, have a right to die with dignity. When you consider that the oldest dog in America is currently forty-one years old, it’s hard to dismiss their argument.”

David whistled in wonder. “Forty-one. That’s amazing.”

“It’s awful,” said Mia. “You’d think that poor dog would want to die at this point.”

Quint shook his head. “Keep in mind that reversal is total. When you undo a year of life, you undo a year of memories. From the dog’s perspective, he’s merely reliving the same year over and over. He’s frozen at a mental age of ten.”

“Huh. Just like Zack.”

Half the room erupted in chuckles. Zack wagged a wry finger at Hannah. “Well played. Well timed. I hate you, but kudos.”

Theo clenched his fists until they throbbed. He was two bombshells away from structural collapse, and yet the others seemed to be handling it just fine.
Why aren’t they freaking out? Why am I the only one ready to scream?

Unamused by Zack and Hannah’s silliness, Quint motioned Charlie Merchant to the stage. The slender young physicist looked slightly ridiculous in his blue rubber suit. Insulated wires connected his thick gloves to a small electronic console on his back. The Silvers watched in quiet bemusement as he wrapped a dangling hood over his head and snapped a clear bresin guard-mask over his face.

Hannah winced with concern. “He’s not about to get younger, is he?”

“No,” Quint replied. “You in particular will appreciate what he’s about to do.”

Charlie pressed a button on his glove. The device on his back whirred to life. A mesh of glowing blue lines appeared on his suit. Before the Silvers could process the odd display, he dashed back and forth across the stage—fifty feet each way, five times in each direction.

He did this all in a blurry six seconds.

The guests gaped as he came to a panting stop. Wisps of steam rose from his shoulder blades.

“The device Charlie’s wearing on his back is called a shifter,” Quint explained. “The outfit itself is called a speedsuit. As you’ve no doubt gathered, the gear doesn’t imbue the wearer with any special motor skills. It merely creates a temporic field in which time is accelerated. What was six seconds to us was a full minute to Charlie.”

Quint patted the young man’s shoulder. “Thank you. You can go change.”

Hannah watched Charlie exit. “God. Is that what I look like when I do it?”

“It is,” Quint told her.

“And is there one of those in every house also?”

“No. Speedsuits are expensive and difficult to maintain. But the technology isn’t limited to clothing. A temporic shift can be generated in any enclosed space. There are special cinemas where you can watch a two-hour movie and yet only lose twenty minutes of your day. Restaurants have special booths where a busy diner can enjoy a leisurely lunch in minutes. The technology’s been around for over three decades. Most of us can’t remember a time when our personal day was fixed at twenty-four hours.”

“How far can it bend time?” Zack asked. “I mean, is it possible to squeeze a year into a day?”

“No. By federal law, no shifter can go beyond twelve times normal speed, or 12x, as they call it. And there are limits, both legal and physical, to the number of consecutive hours one can spend in a shifted state. In most places, the cap is twenty.”

Amanda looked to Hannah with fresh concern. “What’s the danger of going beyond those limits?”

“That’s a source of endless debate,” Quint responded. “Aside from the small bouts of resistance one might encounter when tampering with their body’s natural clock, some psychologists believe the human mind can only handle so much disruption to its natural cycle without suffering . . . issues. Most of their concerns are either theoretical or anecdotal.”

Neither Given took comfort in Quint’s assurance.
Great,
thought Hannah
. Now she’s going to treat me even more like a time bomb.

Moving on, Quint retrieved a small object from a display table. It looked like a ten-inch dinner candle without the wick.

“There are other forms of temporis that are specific enough in application to earn their own names. One of them . . .”

Pressing a button at the base of the candle caused a floating white flame to appear.

“. . . is lumis.”

While the others squinted curiously at the fire, Mia started a new page in her journal. She’d seen lumicands on two occasions now and was eager to learn how they worked.

“Temporic energy moves in waves, as does light. Using one to manipulate the other has opened up some interesting new avenues. This isn’t a real flame. It’s merely a temporal projection, a visual ghost that’s been digitally brightened and desaturated.”

Quint stepped inside a structure the size of a phone booth. It had no walls, just four metal posts supporting a thick ceiling. A series of round glass lenses lined the inside of each column.

“Over the last quarter century, lumis has been adopted into hundreds of everyday devices, and has made dozens more obsolete. The television. The lightbulb. Even windows and mirrors are being replaced by more versatile lumic screens. And as you’ve seen from this little device, lumis is the key to holographic imaging.”

Quint flicked the candle four more times, then exited the contraption. From the back of the room, Beatrice entered commands into a handheld console. Suddenly a second Quint appeared inside the booth, indistinguishable from the original except for the faintest of shimmers. Both Quints addressed the Silvers, though no sound came from the duplicate’s mouth.

“This machine is called a ghostbox. Like David, it reproduces images from the past with lifelike accuracy. These devices come in all sizes and are used for everything from store displays to forensic imaging.”

Just as Quint had done fifty seconds prior, his ghost lit the lumicand four times, then departed the booth. It vanished between posts.