A Chronetic Memory (The Chronography Records Book 1) (21 page)

Actually, the worry was good too. Doc would question anything he might not have thought of, and Lexil had to admit that he wanted this to work so badly, he hadn’t allowed himself to believe it wouldn’t. Ever since he first spotted her on the road outside the Wallace house, he had wanted to do something to bring her some resolution. Even more so, when he saw how much she cared for the little boy.

“First, I’ll have to deliberately make an object vanish. I’ll have to leave evidence that it has, and then attempt to replace it and see if the evidence vanishes.”

“Have you thought about what kind of evidence you will want to leave?”

“I’ve got some options. I can set up a video camera to film it, but that adds a layer of complexity. We don’t know for sure if the image would be removed when the object is removed, although my research so far favors that.”

“I agree. Something more straightforward would be preferable.”

“So I thought I might just spray paint an object against a background, so the spray leaves an outline, then go back and remove the object.”

“So the entire background would be painted, without the object there to block it.”

“Yes, well, also, the object itself won’t be painted if it’s not there when the paint hits it.”

Doc nodded. “I like this idea better.”

“Can you think of anything I’ve missed?”

“You have the means of recording your time very precisely?”

“Yes. I’m only going to do a short burst of paint, and I’ll be removing the object for at least ten seconds on either side of the spray, to give a little leeway for when I replace it.”

Doc stopped rubbing his eyebrow and nodded slowly. “I’ll assist.”

The testing procedure took most of the morning. He made frequent reference to the paper generally acknowledged to offer the best specific information on the subject, “A Study of Chronography Blanks and Their Causes.” He looked up settings, checked angles and durations, fine-tuned the VAO c
onverter
output, projected the hologram to match the experimental settings in the paper.

It wasn’t until halfway through the morning that he glanced at the authors’ names while awaiting a result. There was her name among the others: “D. Adams.” The paper was published in early 2213, which meant the research had been completed when she was only twenty or twenty-one. She must have been an undergraduate at the time, doing impressive work! What he wouldn’t give to have her work with them on the timestream disturbances! He’d wait for a good time to broach the subject to Doc.

The first experiment was a failure. He spray painted a rock, and was able to successfully remove it from its time frame, but when he tried to implement the reversal program, it didn’t work. He knew the rock should vanish from the current time frame for the same amount of time it was restored to the target time frame. By the time he determined what had gone wrong, they had exceeded their planned time window. That wouldn’t have been a problem at RIACH, with its dozens of scanners and the ability to have multiple experiments going at once, but for his purposes, it meant starting the experiment over. Nothing like operating on a shoestring budget, he thought ruefully.

The second experiment was a little better. It was a triumphant moment when the object disappeared from the chamber, but both Lexil and Doc suddenly had memories of a small explosion during the spray paint process, right toward the end, and of having to smother the resulting flames before they licked out and consumed the paint can. That was an exciting moment, in retrospect. They carefully compared the times and realized there was a bit of lag before the object actually appeared and disappeared. When the insertion caused the object to fill the same space twice in the same time frame, the increased pressure caused an explosion. At least, that was the theory. Better just to have a built-in buffer to leave room for the lag. How much lag, exactly, was going to be critical.

They decided to film it while they were doing the spray paint, to see if the recording would catch the object’s disappearance, to allow them to bypass the paint can and give them the ability to fine-tune the timing a little more. It succeeded, and that ability proved to be a breakthrough in their experimental methods. Lexil was glad he was keeping careful records. This would be the material he needed for his own paper on the subject.

So then it was film, remove, restore; film, remove, restore, at both extremes of the time window available to them, plus readings in between. After multiple iterations, they were able to reproduce the same results every time.

But they would need to test their equation for the lag time. They could only conjecture what would happen when their interval increased from a few hours to nine years. It became obvious that they would need an experiment of at least twelve hours to determine whether the lag time increased at a linear or exponential rate as they went further back in time.

Lexil called Dani to let her know he wouldn’t have an answer for her today. He was disappointed when he didn’t get her directly and had to leave a message. He kept it cryptic, “Hey, going to have to reschedule for some time tomorrow!” and hoped she would recognize his voice. He certainly didn’t want to leave his name and risk someone at the institute happening to overhear and being able to identify him.

He was also disappointed, he realized, that he wouldn’t see her again until the next day.

When they had done all they could to set up several experimental stations, he returned to his study of the time disturbances. It was odd to see so many of them clustered around the lab on Vashon Island. He watched a little trail of them follow him out to the tube station on the display of the data from the night before. Soon he was remembering the delights of her quick mind and her sense of humor. Conversations and expressions replayed in his mind and he berated himself for not being more obvious about his interest in her. Then he shook his head. She would have rejected that as quickly as she had his pointed question about whether she was in a relationship with Anders.

“Lexil!” He realized Doc had said his name more than once. He shook his head to clear away the vision he’d been savoring.

“Here!” he answered, guiltily.

“It’s six o’clock. Are you so buried in that that you can’t break away for dinner? Time to call it a night anyway, I think.” Then Doc looked at him more closely, with one of those too-discerning looks Lexil had come to know well. “Where are your thoughts, son? Are you immersed in your experiment, or are you falling in love?”

Might as well admit it. “Both, Doc. Is it that obvious?”

“You’ve been tracing the path of your walk last night on the disturbance graph, so, yes, pretty obvious.”

“Okay, I’m coming in. Need help with anything dinner-wise?” The two walked to the house in comfortable companionship. He was so grateful that this man had stepped forward to take him in after his father had died and while his mother’s life was fading.

Later, while Lexil was drifting off to sleep, it suddenly occurred to him what the little trail of disturbance ripples meant. Disturbances were events that differed from the original timestream. Every interaction he had had with Dani was a disturbance. That meant every moment they had shared was an anomaly, and shouldn’t have happened. If their efforts to restore the timestream were successful, all those moments, every smile, every gaze, every contact, would be gone.

He wouldn’t remember her at all.

RIACH CAMPUS, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA. 0745, Friday, June 9, 2215.

When Dani emerged from the tube car, she looked around for Anders, but couldn’t spot him among the crowd of people milling about. She shrugged. She could catch him at lunch. She remembered her fear from the night before that “they” were after her and might already have Anders. She smiled now at her baseless apprehensions.

She was pleasantly surprised to see Kat with her holosign walking back and forth near the security gate. She waved and moved to intercept her. Kat seemed to be doing better than she had last night. Dani still felt bad about how she had pushed for Kat to see Jored. If Lexil’s experiment worked, it wouldn’t matter whether this Kat had seen the scan or not. This Kat would return to being her Kat, happily enjoying her son.

When she got to her, Dani gave her a hug, gladly accepting a little awkwardness avoiding the sign post between them in exchange for the genuine warmth she felt. “How did you sleep?” she asked her friend.

“Not well, at first,” Kat admitted. “It was the first time I’d allowed myself to think of having a child since last year. I thought I had adjusted to it, but I guess not.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It was something I had to work out on my own, and Marak did too, although he didn’t make it as evident as I did. When I couldn’t get to sleep, I went out to the kitchen for some tea, and he followed me. We talked for a long time. Didn’t get to bed until after midnight. I thought about calling you, but I was pretty sure you’d be asleep.”

“Actually, I was still up.”

“That’s unusual for you, isn’t it? Anyway, we talked, and we figured something out. We really, really want to see that scan. If only for a moment, we want to see who our son would have been.”

Dani was surprised. That was the last thing she would have expected. At the same time, she felt a little leap of joy. It would be so nice to share that with Kat and Marak. “Did you talk to your uncle?”

“Yes, and he will have a security escort ready to take us to you sometime later this morning. He’s going to let me know what time, so I can’t tell yet. He said he was pretty sure it would be okay for you to escort us out again after we see it. After we see him.”

Dani pictured the scene in her mind: this erstwhile protest organizer, avowed enemy of the institute, being escorted by a security guard into its big open mouth. She giggled. “Do you know what that’s going to look like, with the security guard?”

Kat looked puzzled, and then she got it and started laughing too. “It’ll probably help with my reputation,” she said. “They all think I’m too tame anyway. Should I let you know what time we’re coming?”

“No, they’ll put it on my schedule. I’ll see it.”

“Okay. Thanks for doing this.”

“No problem! Just be sure you really want to.”

“I’m already sure.” Kat turned to go, and then turned back. “Dani?”

“Yeah?”

“What kept you up till after midnight?”

Dani smiled. “Well, I didn’t get home until around eleven thirty.”

“What? How could it have taken that long?”

“I took a little detour to Vashon Island. Saw a secret laboratory. Walked in the moonlight with a really good-looking guy. But it’s too much to talk about now. Time for me to be at work!”

“You can’t leave me like this!”

“Have to. I’ll tell you more later.”

As she cleared security and walked to the institute doors, she heard Kat calling after her: “I want to hear about the moonlit walk first!”

Yeah. Because secret island laboratories were so passé. Dani smiled to herself, although she had to admit that there were some memories from that evening walk that made her inexplicably happy.

RIACH OFFICES, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA. 0810, Friday, June 9, 2215.

The morning’s assignments were all things she could do quickly, so Dani reviewed her personal list of things to do. She wanted to leave the coded note for Dr. Brant, reaching out to make a contact, but cautiously. She had written the note at home before she left. “Let’s talk about Vashon. Tube station bench 1715.” She wanted to find Anders and reschedule his meeting with Kat and Marak. Perhaps, if they arrived close to lunch, she could take them to the cafeteria and happen to run into him, but she didn’t want to draw any attention to him while he was still digging into the finances of the place.

Most importantly, of course, she had an institute-approved slot in her schedule to see Jored again, and show her friends their son. She hoped it would make them happy, and not cause them more pain.

She had to walk past the researchers’ conference area to get to the lab. Occasionally, she saw Dr. Brant there in meetings, but that was usually on Mondays. Still, she checked to see who was there today, just in case. The conference area was empty, with a few research fellows at the work areas that ringed it on the outside. No sign of the doctor. No sign of any of the doctors, for that matter. She wondered if she should make a little detour through the hallway where the offices were.

Dani glanced around. No one was paying any particular attention to her. She wandered down the hall with a vague idea that if Dr. Tasman happened to ask her where she should be at that particular moment, she would tell him she was heading for the garbage can at the end of the hall. She wouldn’t actually stop at Dr. Brant’s office, but if she was there, she would make eye contact.

Dr. Brant was in her office. She looked up as Dani passed by. Instead of glancing then turning away, Dani made a point of locking eyes with the doctor and nodding, almost imperceptibly. Then she continued down the hall, nonchalantly dropping the crumpled note in the can at the end of the hall. Then she turned and retraced her steps, back toward the lab. She hoped this was not a wasted trip. But she didn’t know how else to catch the doctor’s attention.

Unnoticed, the camera behind her pivoted to watch her go.