Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow (36 page)

The Congressman introduces everyone, and all sit. “Apologies for the sudden intrusion, Dr. Shackleford, we are running late. Could you summarize for us briefly? We haven’t much time.”

Glowing with pride, Martin Shackleford begins with his first slides, steps through with practiced ease at an executive briefing level.

“In 1951, mathematician Kurt Gödel demonstrated the existence of paradoxical solutions to Albert Einstein's field equations in general relativity. He was a bit of a wag, gave the proof to Einstein as a birthday present. It proved that multiple rotating universes would allow time travel. String theory shows time travel as indistinguishable from spatial movement.” Shackleford gives a wry laugh, a lump in his throat as he speaks of his two idols. “
Gödel gave Einstein doubts about his own theory. But he proved the possibility of what I have revealed here.”

In her office at MIT, Marina Kutsenova squirms in her chair. A handsome grad student in tight jeans lingers in her office door. He has good shoulders and yummy blue eyes. Turning a warm smile on the student, she places her phone on mute.

Shackleford, at the head of the heaviest meeting he has ever held, arrives at his trump card, before the rapt faces of senior military officers he plays the video showing the field’s reaction to the arrival of the two women.

The Congressman speaks. “I’m just a desert kid from the Mojave, but this looks damn convincing to me.” He turns to the Joint Chiefs and other officers in the room. “Do you gentlemen have any question, comments, opinion?”

The Air Force Joint Chiefs officer gets up. “I’m leaving this conclusion to ANG command. They are in the hot seat to fly these missions, if that is what’s decided. We have other matters to attend to. Thank you, Dr. Shackleford, for a most illuminating view of this weapon. We hope with your leadership we can end this episode quickly.” The senior officers file from the room.

Shackleford wants to continue,
wants to explain why he thinks a nuclear explosion at the portal vortex will be the right thing to do, but the Congressman takes that moment to launch into entertaining stories of his boyhood in California and Texas. He is funny, but Shackleford is impatient. Standing at the head of the room holding the laser pointer, Shackleford owns the meeting and cannot leave. Knows the Kraft woman was ogling his bulge while he spoke, certain of it. He dislikes her, but the shape of her ass in tailored slacks is riveting.

Meanwhile, Marina Kutsenova has closed her office door and locked it. The handsome grad student has removed her top. He kisses her breasts while undoing her
skirt.

The Congressman continues witty banter about himself. Much to Shackleford’s disgust, Friedman and
Kraft quietly excuse themselves at the same instant.
A signal?
From opposite sides of the table, the two exit the conference room and stride purposefully along the hallway. Their hips brush, smiling, eager glances. In moments they find a utility closet and step inside. Ripping at their clothing, with mouths and hands they tear at one another’s flesh as Friedman penetrates her. Her fingernails draw blood.

Pissed and frustrated that he didn’t get a chance at the
Kraft woman’s magnificent pelt, Shackleford zeroes in on a killer opportunity. After waiting through twenty minutes of the Congressman’s inconsequential boyhood tales, he whispers in the important man’s ear as the meeting breaks.

“Friedman. The psychologist who was here?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t met him. Is he in my district?”

“For your sake, Congressman, I hope not
,” Shackleford hisses out. “Something you should know. That man is an enemy of the United States.”

Chris Strand thought he had seen it all. Alone now late at night in the deserted offices of Next History, still decoding whale messages, he’s found something
he would never have thought to search, but is forced to admit the possibility. It’s a conversation between two of his employees which takes place, according to the transcript date, thirty-two years in the future. The discussion is engrossing, parts of it use branches of mathematics that have yet to emerge. And which Strand does not fully understand.

It is Carl Vogt and Gary Charlebois, mathematicians both, talking about rules of behavior Carl has derived that will nearly ensure a person achieves success at a given task. It goes back and forth, an informal chat
between professional friends in a coffee shop supposedly not far from the office. Strand has never heard of the place. He reads quickly. What Carl is saying is on the edge of believability, but plausible. Examples are given, and experimental data. There is a proof which Carl delivers verbally, taking elements of psychology and mathematics and combining them into a set of steps, methods for testing outcome states, an algorithm for success. Carl is asking Gary to help him decide if he should sell it or publish it. Their argument is friendly and philosophical.

On the one hand, Strand is relieved at the implication that a future does
in fact exist, that there is a reality which includes two of his team members, continuing their lives. Both men would be in their sixties.

Reading on, Strand sits up with a start. The conversation has digressed from the theoretical backbone of Carl’s proof to a personal
reminiscence. It concerns their old days at Next History, and more importantly, what became of colleagues from years ago.

Strand stops reading
, unprepared to know more. He flips back a few screens, takes some notes on Carl’s method. Within half an hour he’s able to write and validate a computer routine that calculates future success outcomes, using data in the ways Carl’s algorithm defines. He intends to test it on his own team, starting with Carl and Gary. Fervent now, he knows what he is after.

He can find it. Given the matrix of current data, what are the chances his
best people will make it through a given time period? Such as, for example, the next seven days.

A man on a bicycle in riding togs swoops down a hillside, raising dust as he slides and skids in the soft litter beneath tall trees. Ahead and below he sees two rooftops, one shingled, one of corrugated metal. It is his target. He aims his careening bicycle between them and strains to keep the hurtling machine upright. Slides to a dusty stop in the clearing between the two structures. Parked here is a faded blue Chevy El Camino and a yellow Mazda sedan with a bumper sticker on the back,
reading is sexy
. The yellow car bears a plate number all Special Agents on his team have etched into their brains. Quickly he hides his bike, walks up the steps and knocks on the door.

There is no sign on the wide covered porch, the six peeled logs, a plank door of heavy redwood
bearing a sketched charcoal outline of traditional Haida beaver design. Two large mullion windows flank the door. The agent knocks loudly on the thick planks. Waits, knocks again and calls out.

T
he door opens easily. Punches a device on his wrist, speaks a coded word, steps in and closes the door behind him. The open room has the look that someone removed the walls with a large implement to form a living room, kitchen and dining room together, populated with second-hand furniture. Under one window there is a large wooden teacher’s desk with drawers down both sides and a clutter of metal parts, small electronic devices, a sketchpad and pencils, a couple magazines with airplanes on their covers. There is no television.

The remaining walls set off a bedroom and a bath. The floor is barn wood, reclaimed redwood, heavy sixteen-inch planks that show every mark gouge and stain that ever they knew. The ceiling is white, the only visible painted surface, discolored with smoke where the woodstove flue exits.

An open staircase leads to a landing, which doubles back to the left as a hallway, with a bedroom and bathroom. To the right of the landing there is a small closet. Activating the video camera on his bicycle helmet, the agent hurries up the stairs.

A coded knock on the door below. The
agent’s team member coming in to help search. Bedroom here, must be the girl’s, lots of occult stuff but no weapons, no bomb manuals, no porn. Cloth bag containing sex toys in a drawer, no photos of the Pentagon. Beneath the rug a chalked pentagram, looks like it was drawn and rubbed out several times. Books, posters, pencil sketches on the walls. The operative photographs it all. His partner joins him after checking the bathroom.

“This is the girl’s bedroom, we...
” A fast beeping in their ears. The men hurry down the stairs, onto their bikes, take off through the woods. On the main road they stop beside a third man on bicycle, their lookout, as the dust trail from a black Aston Martin swirls the afternoon air. They start down the road, one speaking into a Bluetooth.

“I smell sweat,” Lillian says when she walks inside. But the day is warm and the windows are open, the scent fades quickly.
What Clay smells is the hollow of Lillian’s neck, as he eases her toward his rumpled bed.

Lian throws back his head and laughs. “You expect everyone to agree? One hundred percent? You are not that naïve.”

“Hey! Don’t forget this was your girlfriend’s
big idea.”

“
We have discussed that sufficiently.”

“Well then. How about seventy-five?”

“As in percent?”

“Yep.”

“That will never happen in all eternity.”

Tharcia and Lian
sit side by side on a bench. She’s missed her exercise, so spent forty minutes doing yoga poses, out of sight on the other side of the gazebo. Her T-shirt and leggings cling to her, dark with sweat.

For a distraction, s
he picks up his hand, traces the lines on his palm with a finger. Tries to recall the words Althea said during her palm readings. Most of it sounded foolish.

“Which hand d
o you write with?”

“I don’t write. Assistants perform my every whim.”

“Mm. Long straight head line. Very realistic. Separate from the life line, so you are carefree and adventurous.”

“I am anything but adventurous.”

“Heart line is weak and broken. You have an unstable love life.”

“
Let me remind you, I have been separated from my love for eons. Thanks to chance, we are again united.”

“Thanks to me, you mean.”

“You might have had a part in that, yes. What are you doing?”

“Call it chiromancy.
Woo, spoo-keee. Your heart line is parallel to the head line, so good emotional control. Aha. Fate line joins the life line in the middle of the palm. Have you had to give up control of your life path for family obligations?”

“Never.”

“The Psychic Tharcia is here to tell you that’s bullshit.” She looks at him with a charming smile. “You’re still having a little time out. Those pesky parental issues, remember? But hey, your fate line breaks at the head line. That’s interesting.”

“Don’t waste
my time with such foolishness. What does it say?”

“Look for a midlife career change.”

“Talk sense. Can we get back to business here?”

“You scoffed at my seventy-five percent. I’ll see your seventy-five and lower it to fifty.”

“You know nothing about human nature. You have no idea how many people will be looking the wrong way when the time comes.”

“K
, then. Thirty-four percent, and that’s final.”

“That could work. What? Hey wait, I am supposed to be keeping the standards high here.”

“Standards? You’re the one who’s so effing wise, dude. I accept your reasoning, thirty-four is my final offer.”

Lian thinks about it. “So you are saying, if thirty-four percent of all humanity wants the race to evolve, I let that happen. I let people see through the illusion
s of ego.”

“You got it.”

“And if at least thirty-four percent vote for things to stay as they are, then the ego is unchanged.”

“Yeh. There’s also some other stuff.”

“Wait a minute, we were done.”

“Nope. If you are so sure about human nature, throw some skin in the game. I sure am.”

“Don’t think I’m agreeing to anything more.”

“You will, because you find me fascinating. Next, you go through the rest of time as a female.”

“I have taken human form as both genders, actually.”

“Not what I mean. You need to be
incarcerated as a woman to see the truth. Aren’t you hooked on the truth? Your holy idea is that all is one, right? Be a chick for the next eon.”

Lian smiles.
“Incarcerated. Funny. So let me get this straight. I can’t bargain for souls anymore, and I have to become a female.”

“Yes and one more thing.”

“What!”

“Patience, I’m not through. Humanity gets to see the truth. No more distortions.
If thirty-four percent of us want it, everybody gets to experience the Creator directly.”

“Hmm,
could be possible.”