Chapter 16 #5
He looked out his window for a moment. “We learned so much, more than any of the previous jumps. The instrumentation was better, although of course we have even more sensitive instruments now. We developed a theory of how it might be possible to propel a living object, with the mass of a human being, forward through time. The energies involved are colossal, the difficulty and precision required of the calculations utterly daunting, but extrapolating forward, to some distant civilization with resource levels and technologies we can only begin to imagine right now, we proved it was possible. I mean, you proved it was possible, just by happening. And that gave us the start, led us down the right path. We were able to show it mathematically, to tie the possibility and the reality together within our model of the universe. We even showed why it’s exponential, or at least proposed a damn good theory to explain it. ”
“That’s—that’s good. I’m glad—”
“It made me famous.” He glanced at me, then away.
“And it made you famous. You’re in all the documentaries, all the pop science articles and shows, Time, all the rest. They have the old footage of you in Madison, disappearing and popping back into existence weeks later.
And the high-resolution data and images we gathered here at Berkeley of you during the last jump were even more compelling.
I couldn’t keep you out of it. I tried. I did.
But to convince people, beyond our little circle here, we had to show it all.
My thesis, like I told you in the coffee shop. I had to.”
I let out a breath. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
Lyle continued. “A lot of people still don’t believe it. Others, those who can grasp the math, see it as a puzzle, one of those interesting historical anomalies. Science fiction meets reality. Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”
“Those places are still around?”
“We’re still humans here in the future, Dad.
Anyway, some ignore it, some disbelieve it, some see it as a puzzle.
Then there are the others. They believe.
I never saw them coming. I should have. They heard about you, but the math, the science, and the theories were all noise to them.
To them, you’re the only part that matters.
To them, this is, and can only be, the work of God. ”
“And now they think I’m some kind of prophet.”
“Yes, spreading God’s word or something. Marching up from the past, wielding a flaming sword to smite the sinners.”
“Really? A flaming sword?”
“Maybe it hasn’t gotten quite there, yet.”
“Yet? You think it will?”
“I do.”
“Why, though? What does this give them?”
“Because of the world, the way it is now. Like I told you. It’s a mess.
It’s circling down the shitter, Dad, if you’ll pardon the expression.
The Resource Wars almost ended everything, and they’re still going.
Look, it doesn’t matter, okay? All the crap that’s happened in the last forty-odd years, it’s all the same bullshit.
This movement built up around you because you’re the closest thing the world has to a genuine human miracle, in the flesh and directly observable, since…
” He shook his head. “Since I don’t know when.
Since Muhammad? Since Jesus? At least, that’s what they see. ”
“That’s insane.”
“Of course. It’s also foolish, na?ve, and counter to the facts, to science and logical reason. But you know what? Even I don’t know the why. Or the who.”
I met his eyes, knew where he was going, but I didn’t say anything.
“I still don’t know why you,” he said. “And I don’t know who’s doing it.”
We were silent for a long moment. When I spoke again, my throat felt raw. “You think it’s a who. Just like Maggie said. You think it’s an intelligence, someone, something, doing this to me deliberately.”
“It’s too precise to be random.”
“I could say the same thing about just existing.” I wasn’t sure why I was arguing, but I felt I had to. “That the universe, all the physical laws allowing life to live, allowing stars to make fusion and not collapse on themselves or instantly explode. All that’s too precise to be random.”
“And there you go. That’s why the movement exists. Why otherwise intelligent people are convincing themselves you’re a prophet from God.” He grunted. “It’s a powerful thing.”
“What is?”
“Belief.”
We traveled for a few minutes. I looked out the window, not paying attention until I noticed we’d left the city. “Where are we going?”
“I have a cabin in the mountains, about two hours from anywhere.”
“You said I needed protection.”
“Not everyone likes the idea of a new prophet.”
“You think I’m in danger?”
“I think tomorrow morning you’re going to jump again, and this time it will be almost forty-five years into the future. Anything might happen by then. Anything. We need to prepare you. Protect you. As best we possibly can.”
I watched his face, the way his eyes moved. It was the same intensity as when he was seven, reading books years beyond his age and asking me startlingly perceptive questions. “What about stopping it?”
Lyle sagged against his seat, his entire body deflating, and again I was conscious he was no longer a young man, that he was past his middle age. He was over a decade older than I was. “Dad.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I can’t stop it.”
The words should have hit me harder. Maybe I didn’t have any energy left, any mental capacity to be stunned or knocked back again. Maybe I was still reeling from seeing Amy. But more likely, I’d known the answer before I’d asked.
“I’m sorry,” Lyle said. “I tried, Dad. I tried to find a way. But it’s there, in the math, the numbers staring me in the face. They haunt me, the numbers and formulas, all the theories that made me famous. They come at me in my dreams and swallow me whole.”
I stared forward, trying to find my way back, trying to hear him and understand.
“I dream about you, Dad. So often. So often. I dream about your disappointment. You have this—this accusation. You never shout, in my dreams. You just tell me I broke my promise. Forty years and two broken marriages, and I can’t fucking stop it.
I don’t know how. As far as I can tell…” He balled his fists.
“As far I can tell it can’t be stopped. The math, the numbers, they slide into place so perfectly, like chains, but I can’t break them, no matter how hard I try—”
“Lyle,” I said, almost gasping the word out.
“I’m sorry—”
“Just stop, please, stop.” I shut my eyes and took several deep breaths, feeling the cool, dry air of the car slide past my lips, down my throat, filling my lungs.
In. Out. Again. Slowly, painfully, I pulled myself back from that distant, hollowed-out place where I’d retreated.
I willed myself to open my eyes, to see what was in front of me.
Lyle wept, hot tears rolling down his cheeks as he shook in his seat. He’d pushed his glasses onto his forehead, and he held his face with both hands. I reached over and touched his shoulder. He jerked.
“Lyle,” I said. “This isn’t your fault. It never was. I never wanted you to spend your life trying to save me. But I know how much you’ve given, how hard you’ve tried—”
“Not enough. I couldn’t—”
“Lyle. You’ve done so much, given so much.
You’ve kept me in your thoughts and loved me all these years.
No one could ask for more. No one could ask for a better son.
No one could be prouder of his son than I am.
” I meant every word. I watched the hunched shoulders of my fifty-one-year-old son, and despite all the pain, all the confusion, the sheer, unrelenting strangeness of it all, I was proud.
He had done so much, sacrificed so much, and gotten so far.
And he’d done so without me there to guide him, to help him. He done it for me, but without me.
Lyle stopped shaking. He dropped his hands, leaned across the center console, and pulled me into a hug. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“It’s okay, bud,” I said, patting his back. “It’s okay.”