The Sphere: A Journey In Time (20 page)

"And what happened to the older version of Noah? The one I met before I went back?"

"In all timelines except the one where he stays in his proper time, he is killed shortly after Noah returns."

I wondered if he ever got my note before he was killed. If Jim had found a way to sneak it in. My train of thought was interrupted by a low droning noise. Another plane was heading towards the island. Marina stood up from her chair and said something in another language that sounded like a swear. I bolted out of mine as well, knocking it over. Carlo grabbed Erica's hand and tugged her towards one of the huts on the opposite side of the pool. "Erica, Adelaide, come on. We have to hide you!"

Erica placed her hand over Carlo's and held her ground. "Relax Carlo, it's okay." She turned to me and gave me her quiet, calming smile. "It's just Noah."

Chapter 20

My breath stopped. Noah. One hundred and forty something year old Noah was on that plane and would be here in mere moments. I struggled to breathe and remain standing. I walked out towards the dock alone while the plane taxied to the opposite side of the first seaplane. I avoided looking into the cockpit at first. There was a rope coiled along the side of the fuselage. I grabbed it and tied the plane to a post on the dock as the door opened. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone come down out of the pilot seat.

I stood up and kept my eyes on the fuselage. I had seen so many different versions of Noah in the past week and I really didn't want to be introduced to yet another one. I knew he would be older and different but still the same person. I worried that I would decide that that was enough and I'd chose to stay in this timeline and live out my life twiddling my thumbs on this island. It was beautiful and I loved sailing but somehow I knew it wouldn't be enough. I realized he was staring at me as I stood there staring at nothing. I snapped out of my daze and turned to face him.

I only had a moment to look at him before he swept me up in a giant bear hug and laughed. "I knew I could count on you to find your way back!" He set me back down and held me at arm's length. "You look so young."

"You look so old," I countered.

He laughed again and let me go. It was only then that I noticed the small girl standing behind him. He noticed me trying to look around him and stepped aside. "Addy, this is Daphne."

"Your daughter?"

He bellowed again. "Daughter? Do you really think I'd ever have settled down?"

I couldn't help but remember the older version of Noah that had children. Though I always knew Noah would end up an old bachelor, there was a part of me that was disappointed he never found someone to spend his life with and want to have children with. Though it certainly looked like he wasn't friendless and perfectly happy with the way his life had gone. I smiled. "You're right, I should know better than that. Too busy living life in the fast lane?"

"You have no idea." He hadn't stopped grinning since I turned to look at him. "Daphne is like Erica," he paused and the corners of his mouth fell for a moment. "You have met Erica, haven't you?"

"Yes. Just about an hour ago."

"Ah good, good. I wasn't sure when I got her note how far along she was. Come on, I'm starving." He grabbed my hand and Daphne's and dragged us back down the dock. Carlo must have known Noah would be hungry, there was already food on the table. Now that I thought about it, I was fairly starving myself. It had been an hour since Erica's arrival, and my brain was finally getting enough of a break to realize I hadn't eaten much of anything all day. Noah immediately gathered Erica into another hug. "Erica, so good to see you again!"

She stopped him just short of picking her up as well. "I'm not as young as I used to be, Noah."

Marina crossed over to him and embraced him as well. "It's good to see you again, Noah."

"You haven't aged a day, my dear." Carlo emerged from the hut with two more chairs and was assaulted before he could put them down. "Carlo! There's a good boy, always know when to feed your Uncle Noah." He released Carlo and took one of the chairs from his hands, placed it at the table and sat in it. Daphne sat next to him still saying nothing, though she was smiling.

The whole atmosphere had changed with Noah's arrival. Though I knew I still had a serious decision to make, it felt like whatever happened from here on out, everything would somehow work out. The stress of my situation and the weight of what was coming seemed greatly diminished.

Noah rubbed his hands together in anticipation before turning to me. "Well now, Addy, have you decided what to do with yourself?"

"Not just yet. I'm still trying to get a handle on this multiple timeline thing."

"Waste of time, really. They exist, nothing you can do about that."

"Then what have you been doing these past years, Noah?"

"Running about, not getting caught. Going on a few adventures. Learning. Fighting. The usual."

"Fighting?"

"A natural aide to not getting caught."

I couldn't help but laugh. Of course Noah would find all of that exciting. He probably loved being in jail back in the 1800s. He had been addicted to the thrill of time travel and the clandestine operations. It was like being in a joke that the whole world is the butt of. I missed it just as I knew he did. I wanted it back, his presence made me realize that. I was right that living out this life would not be enough. I turned back to Erica. "Can you send me back to just after Noah and I disappeared in 1692? So I can remove the journal and go back to where I should have been before this whole mess began?"

"No, I cannot get you to a timeline that I don't exist in. At least, not this version of myself. I can only send you to sometime before you disappear, before the timeline splits. You'll just have to be careful to not let yourself be seen by your other self."

Noah cut in. "You would need to keep Sarah from seeing us as well, remember, Addy."

It was so strange to see him sitting there. He looked just like the older version of himself that I met only a few days ago, though his hair was cut in a modern style instead of the 1700s cut he had before. And he knew who I was. He was exactly the same person I had left, merely older. It was a relief after dealing with the first version I had met.

"If you've never done this before, how can you be so certain you're able to do it now? With the precision to get me where I belong?"

"Because I've already tried it."

My brain felt sluggish. I wondered if this was one of those strange paradoxes where something would happen in my future but her past? "I don't understand."

"We have another sphere."

This was definitely a surprise. I half smiled. "Let me guess, I'm supposed to go back to steal a sphere and bring it back to you at some point in the recent past?"

She caught the snark in my voice and smirked back at me. "Don't be silly. We had a new sphere made years ago."

"How?" I was having trouble following all of this.

"What do you think I've been doing all these years?" Noah looked at me mischievously. "I found out everything I could about the lab. I found out about the researcher who invented the sphere, and I tracked him down.

"But Erica said he had been neutralized."

"He had. It took quite some time and effort, but he was able to once again sort out the logic that led him to the creation of the sphere. Without the resources of the lab it's not quite as fancy. It's more like a box, actually. A small wooden box that would fit in say, a small safe should I need to hide it from lab people at some point." His grin was somewhere between petulant and wicked.

I suddenly thought of the little wooden box in my backpack. "How did you know?"

"I would've made a good scout, I think. About ten years ago the lab was getting a little too close for comfort. I needed to hide the box somewhere that it would find its way back to me later. In a way the lab would not expect. I got Erica to help me track down your return. I saw you on the dock at the marina the day you purchased the boat. I returned a few months earlier to plant the box in the safe, then get them off my tail. Got to skip past ten years. I hear they were rather dull. Nothing of note happened."

"So why haven't you gone back to fix things?" The question came out more harshly than I meant it to. But I was angry. Here was Noah mucking about in the future when he could have done the responsible thing and gotten back to where he belonged.

He turned quiet for once. "Addy, we only got the sphere a few years ago. Well, I guess about 15 years ago from today, right?" He looked at Erica, who nodded. "It took some experimenting before Erica got a handle on moving me around in time, then some more experimenting with Daphne involved. And look at me. Imagine me turning up from the conclusion of my mission this age. With a wooden box. There would be questions. Even if you came back shortly after me, they would know I hadn't come straight away. There would be more questions asked and it's likely I'd end up in the same position I was before I came here." He paused, perhaps feeling a little bit of the guilt I had intended to inflict on him. "Besides, I didn't see the point. I've had a good life here. I've got another sphere. I'm able to stay one step ahead of the lab. I have no desire to go back to them. And I strongly suggest you stay away from them as well."

I was still mad at him. He sounded more like he was trying to be my father, telling me what to do, than a friend offering a suggestion. Marina told me the lab did good work as well. If they were also saving lives with vaccines and advancing the human race through technology, why should that be denied to mankind?

Erica interrupted my train of thought. "There was another complication with that. Once you're back before the timelines split, the other programmer will be able to see you and control your sphere as well. Daphne and I have experimented with this a little bit in this timeline. One programmer can override the intentions of another. But if you manage to continue past the split into a timeline that this version of myself does not exist in, my ability to keep control over you will diminish greatly. Within a few minutes I doubt I’d be able to do anything at all when you tried to use the sphere. Daphne's much better at this than I am, but we're not sure she'd be able to send you forward in a different timeline. We haven't tried to do that. Had I sent Noah back and he continued along the original timeline, he could have been stuck there. So if you go back and fix things, you'll be stuck in that timeline."

Noah interjected again, "If that's what you want, that is. There are other options, you know."

"Like what?"

"I know you miss it. The missions, the travel. All of it. Erica and Daphne are able to send you wherever you want in time and are fairly certain if you went back to a time before the timelines split they'd still have control over you. So long as you don't go back to a time where another programmer is expecting someone to be, they're not likely to notice you. You could keep doing what you've been doing. Solving mysteries and finding ways to let society know the truth about things. And you could do it without having to subscribe to the lab's stupid rules."

"Their rules make sense given what we've done to the timelines, Noah!" I practically hissed the words at him.

"I'm not saying you should go tell Lincoln not to buy those theater tickets, I'm saying you can be careful without having to be as tied down as we had been. The small splits heal themselves."

I thought about it. It would be nice to be able to do my job without having to follow all their restrictions and formalities. I understood their concern and why they were in place, but I always thought some of them were a little overkill. And that awful white room with the moldy mats, I would not be sorry to not have to arrive there every time I came back. But there were diseases to be concerned with, and the readjustment period. "It was nice having the facilities available to us though. What if I go back and catch the black death like that other librarian did?"

Noah's face was blank. "We'll kill you before you can pass it on."

"What?"

He laughed at me. "Just kidding. But come on Addy, the black death, and all diseases of the past are curable in this day and age. You know that."

"It’s not like I can run down to the corner store and get the cure for it. And the return trip recovery is always so rough. Especially after a long trip."

"Not necessary. It was a side effect of the programmers from the lab."

"What do you mean?"

He sighed. "We don't know exactly, but I haven't had the side effects on the trips I've done with Erica and Daphne. We think, given the restrictions the lab puts on their programmers they were not able to operate as efficiently as they should be able to. That gets carried over into our journeys. We shouldn't be getting sick on these trips, just a little dizzy from the sudden time change. But it's not like we're physically being transported..." He trailed off and turned to Erica. "She explained this better and I still didn't quite get it."