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  NEXUS OF TIME

  by

  Mark Riverstone

  Nexus Of Time

  Book 2 of the Grey Earth Trilogy

  Copyright © 2019 by Mark Riverstone

  First Edition

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher or

  author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 9781712116463

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Realities

  Chapter 2 The History Of The Present

  Chapter 3 Light and Dark

  Chapter 4 Where Eagles Fly

  Chapter 5 Swim with the Fish

  Chapter 6 The Final of Four

  Chapter 7 Finding Nemo

  Chapter 8 Meeting Of The Minds

  Chapter 9 No Home away from home

  Chapter 10 Friends And Frenemies

  Chapter 11 The Issue Of Tissue

  Chapter 12 A Time Proposal

  Chapter 13 Folds of Reality

  Chapter 14 The Unspoken

  Chapter 15 Pit Stop

  Chapter 16 Serene Interruption

  Chapter 17 A Gentleman Caller

  Chapter 18 Examining Eighteen

  Chapter 19 The Pilgrimages

  Chapter 20 Going Under

  Chapter 21 A Moment Too Soon

  Chapter 22 The Morning After

  Chapter 23 Rambling Man

  Chapter 24 The Short Of It

  Chapter 25 An Unexpected Guest

  Chapter 26 Exigent Circumstances

  Chapter 27 The Dispersion

  Chapter 28 Off-Road

  Chapter 29 Convoy Crossing

  Chapter 30 A Miscalculation

  Chapter 31 Had, Have, Will Have

  Chapter 32 The Yin of Ying

  Chapter 33 Roadside Assistance

  Chapter 34 Rebel Yell

  Chapter 35 Side Tracked

  Chapter 36 Future Impressions

  Chapter 37 Facing Herself

  Chapter 38 Future Past

  Chapter 39 Holding Tight

  Chapter 40 On The Road Again

  Chapter 41 Becoming Strong

  Chapter 42 Suit Up

  Chapter 43 On the Rocks

  Chapter 44 Breaking the Mold

  Chapter 45 The Underground

  Chapter 46 Block of History

  Chapter 47 A Shot Too Many

  Chapter 48 Party Planning

  Chapter 49 The Welcome

  Chapter 50 Twists of Truth

  Chapter 51 Barge In

  Chapter 52 Black Out

  Realities

  Chapter 1

  Possible Dream, Possible Reality, Impossible Place.

  A fine line divides dream illusions and waking reality. If one remembers a dream as one remembers reality, is memory a dream, or dreams a reality? Dr. Black's mind swims as her senses struggle to focus. Where is she? Is this her life, or a life remembered, a dream, but not? As her mind clears, the contradictions in her thoughts confirm this is reality because dreamy delusions contain more clarity. She looks at the metallic walls confining her like a modern tomb or sarcophagus, yet she senses the open world beyond them, as vast as the fluid oceans.

  As she shakes off the foggy sensations clouding her mind, Dr. Black's memory is unfamiliar with the small confined cockpit she sits in. Solid alloy walls as impenetrable as her confusion; their surfaces cold and stale chilling her skin. A pilot's chair sits empty next to her. A powered-down control panel spans beneath an ultrahigh-tensile windshield showing no view, sealed on the outside with an opaque alloy cover. Two monitors show the front and back exterior views, but the lack of light outside displays only darkness on the monitors.

  Dr. Black fears impending death, but can't identify a threat or cause. Then, to her right, Dr. Black spots a thin strip of polished metal. A mirror image of herself reflects from its surface, staring back at her, hoping to see answers. Hair pulled tight into a bun with stray clusters breaking free drooping in an exhausted state; Round face chiseled with stress and anxiety. A two-piece crystal blue uniform with silver shoulders and a silver stripe on each arm and leg covers her body. Motionless, her tall thick body sits stiff in the copilot's chair. While her hands clasp tight the chair arms, she releases a deep sigh of resignation and relief, remembering that she is not alone, but going nowhere.

  Her mind knows none of this existed moments ago. Why is this happening? Her subconscious knows something it is not being revealed. She is here by her will and purpose, sitting in this craft's cockpit because everything went horribly wrong.

  The rear cockpit door opens. Walter, a short bald man in his late eighties, enters wearing the same uniform. His presence brings memories to Dr. Black. They came here as a last-ditch effort. This man, a genius and respected scientific peer, escaped with her traveling here to send off a high-tech message in a bottle: laser propelled particles of information sent adrift in gravity and electromagnetism. After closing the door, Walter moves to the pilot's chair and sits.

  "That's it. I transmitted our messages. Best hope they...the future past, find the radiation signature from the first transmission and receive these data packets."

  Dr. Black turns her head and looks to Walter for a sign of hope. "Do you think it will work? I don't mean to express doubt, but I became a medical doctor because biology deals with tangibles. I was never comfortable with the abstract theoretical sciences. Theories sometimes go unproven."

  "It had better work. Our future past depends on our success here. My regret is we took too long planning retaliation. The only projects I completed were building this transmitter and blueprinting a receiver. When I do it again, I must accomplish more research if we will ever get ahead of them."

  "My purpose was to save Ying. Instead, I watched him die. Maybe if I grabbed an artifact before they destroyed the archive bunker, I might have found something worth sending back..."

  Walter interrupts, "Dr. Black, I understand. But we'll soon be dead. It is up to future pasts to succeed."

  Walter sees a hopeless dismay wash over Dr. Black's face, "I'm sorry, I...get casual about death at my age. You are too young to die. You deserve so much more from life than sacrificing yourself this way. Though the chance anyone we left behind survived is..."

  "Walter, Stop! Just stop. I know you mean well. I don't want to wait to die and don't want reminded how I don't deserve it. Isn't there anything we can do? Is there any engine power left?"

  Walter sits forward and looks at gauge displays, "Only enough for five more minutes of life support. Any initialization of the propulsion drive will drain out power in seconds. If I turn off the interior lights, turn on the exterior bow spotlight, and open the windshield blast cover, we could at least look at something while we wait. I'd like to watch when I scuttle the tower. However, the deep-sea pressure could cause the windshield to fail and rupture before we run out of air."

  "I'm willing to take the chance if you are. Staring at this closed cockpit is unnerving."

  "Ok. Opening blast cover."

  Walter taps into the console, and the blast cover opens as the exterior spotlights illuminate the deep-sea terrain and ocean floor sediment surrounding their vessel. Before them is a three-meter-tall metal tower, with half an alloy oval and coil rings around the opening, mounted on the top. Inside the oval is a tight cluster of transmission tips pointing outward. Pressure against the windshield causes it to creak, but then stop.

  "That is better," says Dr. Black.

  Walter picks up a remote controller from atop the ship console.

  "Ok, scuttling transm
itter in three, two, one...," and then Walter flicks the controller.

  An explosive blur fills the water around the top of the transmitter as it bursts into pieces. The chunks lose momentum in the extreme water pressure. A few harmless chunks float into their ship, tapping the hull. When the water stills, only the bent-up base remains.

  Walter and Dr. Black stare out the windshield at the natural terrain.

  Dr. Black breaks the silence, "Peaceful at the bottom of the ocean. Last time I was with Tomas we were sitting on boulders in the dark staring up at the stars in the New Mexico desert sky. It is strange how appreciating nature's simplicity enhances when someone faces danger."

  "Who's Tomas?"

  "Agent Seventeen. He was in your lab..."

  "Oh yes, I remember. Sorry, I was listening, but my mind is racing, remembering the people I loved. I wonder if heaven exists, and if so, will I get to see my loved ones again."

  "I'm surprised to hear you say that. With your logic and scientific reasoning, I never thought you pondered God. I thought you wrote the concept off as uneducated fear-based superstition."

  "The concept of God creating salt pillars and impregnating virgins I find strange, but the more science uncovers and learns, the more I accept God might exist."

  "How does science support the belief of God?"

  Turning to look at Dr. Black, Walter responds, "No matter how I uncover the secrets of the universe, it keeps revealing structures, rules and mathematical equations. Every time we discover something new, we understand it through science. It shows intelligent design. If there was not an intelligent being designing the universe, then I expect a randomization of forces or matter or particles. Something that didn't balance with or conform to natural laws, was undecipherable with math, or unexplainable by science. Something in our universe that could not be elucidated because it was unaffected by cosmic forces, and science couldn't deconstruct into equations and algorithms.

  "However, the only thing that fits that unexplainable description is God. Everything else follows an intelligent design that we can see and decipher. How did we as humans even get the ability of higher mathematics to figure out the equations of the universe? What makes more sense: the spontaneous creation of the universe accidently embodied everything with a mathematical structure, and on this planet, human bags of flesh developed intellectual greatness through random development, making them capable of unlocking the universe's secrets, or that a higher being created the universe with parameters, rules and functions, then gave us as simple beings the capacity to decipher the universe we live in so we could discover it?"

  Dr. Black reflects on Walter's words. "I am not sure God exists. I believe souls exist. If there is a heaven, I hope that Tomas and my husband are there to greet me. I would introduce them to each other. My husband was a wonderful man most his life, but I worry for his soul. His last couple years, depression, anger and spite drove him to commit suicide. I hope only the best of him crossed over, because my heart would break if his soul carried torment he had at the end of his life."

  Walter's thoughts ponder what Dr. Black said, "I assumed everyone I loved is in eternal bliss, but I guess their memories, good and bad, go with them. If souls exist after death. I can form an argument that God exists, but am uncertain if heaven or hell exist. To me this universe is both heaven and hell. I'm a much better scientist than theologist."

  "Maybe your scientific mind can answer the one question I can't resolve. If souls exist, they follow the laws of science and nature, right?"

  "That stands to reason," agrees Walter.

  "I felt Tomas' soul in his body at the bunker holding the Roswell specimens. Yet it was within him when he was alive with me training in Colorado at the same time. We are sure at least two timelines exist, one with Tomas before he went back in time, and the one in which Tomas crashes in Roswell. Does each timeline conjure its own soul in us, or does the same soul spread across all timeline divergences?"

  "I never considered that. Since we are three-dimensional beings in a fourth dimensional existence, it makes sense that our souls connect through a fifth-dimensional versions of ourselves. Time and space folds in the fifth dimension, so our spirits could have a simultaneous existence in multiple timelines, multiple pasts and multiple futures. That explains why people believe in reincarnation. They experience or sense the life and knowledge of their existence in another timeline through their fifth-dimensional soul. This explanation convinces me souls exist."

  "You don't believe in reincarnation?" asks Dr. Black.

  "Nah, that's hogwash. Reincarnation implies that the number of souls is limited and must be reborn. Yet, population growth undergoes exponential expansion. The math for reincarnation doesn't work. Add in time travel, multiple timelines and multiverses, the theory of reincarnation causes more problems than it solves."

  "Yeah, I never bought into it either. Back in college I met a group of friends who believed they were reincarnated. They were so pretentious and self-involved. I'd argue with them, and they'd tell me I was too logical and that not everything is explainable by science. One day I couldn't take it anymore and said, 'What good it is to live all those lifetimes if you still end up being a jerk!'"

  They chuckle, easing the tension.

  Dr. Black adds, "It doesn't matter what any of us believe. If it exists, it exists; if it doesn't...,"

  Dr. Black's words drop off when she spots motion within this deep, still, serene environment.

  Not noticing, Walter injects, "You are right, it doesn't matter, but wonder if it..."

  "Walter?"

  "...relates to convincing..."

  "Walter?!"

  Walter stops and looks at Dr. Black, "Are you alright?"

  "What could swim around this deep?" ask Dr. Black with great concern.

  "Where?" Walter looks out the window, "Do you see something?"

  "Over there. Straight ahead to the left of the transmitter remains."

  They both stare at the far edge of where the spotlight loses illumination. Drifting into the light is the large nose of a craft. No seams or bolting, a solid contour of streamline design. It moves closer, revealing more of its upper and lower hull. The craft is half the size of the ship Walter and Dr. Black observe from, but looks twice as fierce.

  "It can't be," say Dr. Black, her eyes widening with her gaping jaw.

  "They found us. They had to be nearby and detect the shock wave when I scuttled the transmitter. Somehow they followed us from the Barge."

  "What do we do?"

  Walter takes a deep breath, grabs Dr. Black's arm, and stares into her eyes with intensity, "Listen to me. We can't let them take this ship. They'd find out what we are doing, get our messages, and all this would be for nothing."

  "What do you propose? I don't want them taking me alive."

  "We flood the ship. That will ruin the electronics and destroy the ship's data. Even if they salvage the ship and replace damaged components, they can't recover the lost data. If we don't, they'll board us and find out everything we did and everything we can do."

  "I understand," accepts Dr. Black.

  "We good?"

  "No, but we must do this. Do it before I think about it too much."

  The nose of the ship moves closer to the scuttled tower and slows. Walter types commands into the console, but nothing happens.

  "It's not working. I can't get the hatch bay or boarding doors to open."

  "Why not?"

  "We drained too much energy waiting for the power to run out."

  "Does the hatch have a manual release?"

  Walter ceases typing into the console and turns to Dr. Black, "I'm sure we could if I knew how. When they sent us off in this thing, it was autopilot that got us here. Opening the doors manually can't be easy. This ship is a high-altitude, deep-sea, and combat ready vessel. It would be catastrophic if one person pulling an emergency latch could open a door."

  They both look out the windshield at the other ship which has come
to a complete stop above the destroyed transmission tower.

  "What about the windshield? Can we break it?" ask Dr. Black tapping on the glass.

  "If the water pressure isn't breaking it, we can't."

  "But you said the windshield is at its limit. We can weaken it, right?"

  Walter thinks. "Nemo said there was a 'last resort' in the back of the pilot's seat. He meant a gun in case we wanted to end ourselves that way."

  Dr. Black jumps out of her seat, climbs behind it, and opens a compartment on the back of the pilot's chair. Inside is a pistol, a flair gun and first aid supplies.

  Dr. Black grabs the firearm, and looking at Walter while gripping it, "Should I do it?"

  "Hold on, let me get behind the seat in case it ricochets. Although if we succeed, a bullet wound will be irrelevant." Walter gets behind the seat, shielding his body with it. "Shoot the same spot to create structural inconsistency."

  "Ready?" says Dr. Black, aiming at the center of the window.

  "Wait. Dr. Black, it has been a pleasure and honor to work with you and befriend you."

  "Ditto, you crazy old man."

  The comment causes Walter to crack a smile, "Do it."

  Dr. Black aims and shoots at the windshield. The bullet penetrates into the windshield, sticking in the glass. She fires twice more near the first shot, with the same effect. The high tinsel glass creaks. After taking a deep breath and exhaling, she fires the rest of the bullets into the glass, riddling one spot with chips and nicks.

  Fissures grow around the bullet marks, connecting the impact points. The creaking becomes a loud stress moan. As Dr. Black and Walter look to each other, the front windshield shatters inward, flooding the cockpit. The water pressure crushes their bodies into organic pulp.

  Dr. Black jumps startled and shakes her head, reaching out to steady herself while her dizzy mind spins. Her thoughts scramble. Was she dreaming? Is she awake? Is she dead?

  Her head clearing, she looks up and sees her hand resting against a large transparent specimen containment tube with liquid inside holding a human she surgically altered to mimic a hybrid skin spawn. The humanoid inside is the preserved body of Tomas Seventeen, her friend and former patient. Dr. Black gave him those larger round eyes and skull, removed his hair, nipples and navel, so Tomas resembled the human hybrids created by the Greys. But that is not what she sees. She sees his soul inside, the man who gave her hope and balance, a soul she can still sense within his lifeless altered corpse.