Geoffrey Eld frowned as the odd smell filled the air. It was something like burning ozone, but one glance at the table confirmed that he had not left any flasks over the flame. He was not even working with chemicals this night; he had spent the last three hours bent over his papers, reworking a damnable calculation and inventing new swear words as he went along.
There was a soft pop in the recesses of his study.
Geoffrey's expression did not change as he slid a hand in the drawer at his side. He removed a pistol, glancing once at the chamber to make sure it was loaded, and let it rest against his knee.
“Come out,” he said. “I know you are there.”
“Ha!”
The laughter was brief and harsh, followed by wracking coughs. Geoffrey lowered the aim of his pistol; the coughs were coming from lower than he had expected.
“Are you from S.M.A.S.?” he demanded.
A voice answered from the darkness. “The—ha! The Society for Morally Applied Science. I remember. A bunch of damnable fools, every last one of them. They might have accomplished something if they'd had even one head screwed on right. Or at least if they'd had a respectable scientist among them.”
Geoffrey's frown deepened. There was something familiar about the voice.
“Come out,” he said again.
“I'm coming, I'm coming.” Now the voice was irritated. “I wouldn't have incorporated in the back of the damnable room if it hadn't been for—pah! You try doing the calculations from memory at my age, that's all I'll say about it.”
He laughed again suddenly, as though realizing an unexpected joke.
“Mind, you won't get the chance,” he added.
The figure came smoothly out of the darkness—too smoothly to be walking. Geoffrey immediately saw the reason for that, and for the low placement of the voice: the man was in a wheelchair, although not of any make Geoffrey had seen before. It was sleeker than he was use to, and it moved with a subtle hum. And the man sitting in it...
Geoffrey felt his hand go weak. The man was more than just familiar. He was...
“Yes, yes, keen eye,” said the old man. He tapped the side of his spectacles. “Enjoy it while you can. Now, I don't have time to mess about, so there's no breaking it easy. I'm you, from the future. Do you believe me?”
Geoffry set the pistol very gently onto his desk. His eyes never left the old man, but they narrowed slightly. Finally he nodded.
“Yes. I can see that.”
“Good. I don't have much time...” he allowed himself a ghostly smile, “despite all appearances. I'm here, of course, to warn you about project X312. More commonly called the Wormhole Generator. Privately, in the laboratory, known as the Eld Device.”
Geoffrey placed a hand on the sheaf of calculations on his desk, and then forced himself to relax. “This...you have to give me a moment. I know—I heard you! You don't have much time. Nevertheless.”
“Pace if you like,” said the older man as Geoffrey tensed to stand. “I'm going to keep talking, though.”
Geoffrey forced himself to his feet, ignoring the impatience in—his mind hesitated for a moment, and settled for Geoffrey the Elder—in the Elder's expression. “Fine. What do you mean 'warn'?”
The Elder rolled up to the desk. There was a stick across his lap; he raised it and tapped the papers. “This,” he said. “You think you've got it figured out. You're wrong.”
Geoffrey turned slightly red. “I've spent years on these formulas—”
“And I've spent decades! You're close—God knows you're close—but you're missing something. And that something nearly destroys the world.”
“Nonsense!” said Geoffrey. He took a deep breath, forcing his ire down again in the face of the Elder's expression. Now the old man looked cynically amused, like a grandfather tolerating his grandchild's outburst, and appeared to be enjoying an irony that was well hidden from Geoffrey.
“It's been a while since I enjoyed a good tantrum,” he said. “These lungs don't put up with it anymore. If you're not going to pace then sit down boy, and I'll explain.”
Geoffrey did.
“Better.”
The Elder settled into his wheelchair, fixing Geoffrey with a stern gaze.
“I was—you are—working on a wormhole generator. The device is meant to bend reality and connect two separate points, allowing the instantaneous transfer of matter, and anything else that can travel along the wave. Grab a point in Paris, for example, and pull it until it exists next to New York City. Or the moon, if that's your fancy. It certainly was useful when we got around to space travel—”
Geoffrey leaned forward, his eyes filled with a sudden wild hunger. “You mean it works? It works!”
The stick slammed on the desk, causing the papers to scatter and Geoffrey to flinch. It had come perilously close to his face.
“Yes, it works. Where are you brains, boy? How else could I have—bah!”
Geoffrey's face reddened, and he opened his mouth to argue, but the old man was already shaking his head.
“No, no—I should have known. I haven't forgotten the flush of discovery, the ecstasy of success. It burns a little less brightly in me these days, but—never mind. Yes, boy, it works. You're very close to the breakthrough you think will change the world.”
“I think...?”
“Oh, it does that, make no mistake. Just not in the way you expect.”
The old man sighed. Uncertainty crossed his face, only briefly but still looking very out of place.
“Not in the way I thought,” he continued. “Oh, at first it was all fame and glory, and potential beyond our wildest dreams. Far beyond, really. New applications were theorized and realized in the span of hours. This energy nonsense going on? Pah! First they thought of nuclear power, transporting the waste far away from the planet. They moved onto instant transportation of goods across continents—that took about a week of pie-in-the-sky rambling, and it managed to change everything—and then it was terraforming on a grand scale. Nuclear power lasted—oh, I would say about a year, before someone had the bright idea of turning a wormhole into a pinhole, and placing it in the center of a star. They had to perform that particular experiment on Mars, because they had no idea how it would work. Left a hell of a lot of scorch, but they finally got it under control, and—we're working on solar power now, right? Ha! Thermal energy, boy, that's where it's at. For a few months, at least, before we discovered—well, never mind. Not important.
“Of course,” he continued, smiling nastily, “it took even less time to get around to espionage and assassination. Try keeping secrets when your notes disappear overnight. Put it on a computer, you say? Sure, and wake up the next morning to find a crater where your mainframe used to be. Hard to track a bomb left in the embassy back to its source when it was deposited from another world. Not much point in border security when the enemy can appear in the middle of New York city, smiling and ticking away.”
“Is that what you're warning me about?” asked Geoffrey as the Elder paused. “Anarchy?” He sounded disappointed.
“What? No! No, we took care of that—took me four years to adjust the wave, but we managed...well, call them Secure Zones. Areas where a wormhole simply cannot be generated, because it doesn't really exist in the same—well—” he waved this away; Geoffrey's expression was turning calculating, “—it's a bit advanced for you. Four years from now, another story. Between now and then...ah, but I could tell you tales! The things we did; the things we saw. The money I made...God! The world became one singular laboratory, and I—you—were holding the clipboard.”
“Yes,” said Geoffrey, and his eyes were very bright. “Yes...just as I imagined...”
“More than you could possibly imagine,” said the Elder. He shook himself, forcing the dreamy look from his eyes. “But it's not what you expected; no. Something...went wrong.”
Geoffrey forced himself back to reality as well, but the light did not leave his eyes. “What, then? What happened?”
“Everything...started falling apart,” said the Elder. He spoke more slowly now; almost reluctantly. “Literally. We lost...cohesion. Molecules stopped binding properly; reactions stopped occurring. Cause and effect were no longer reliable. It took...years. Years to notice, anyway, but I think—I know—that it began much sooner. Began, in fact, in this very laboratory. With the supposed completion of that.”
He lifted his stick again, laying it gently on the stack of papers scattered across Geoffrey's desk.
“The formula,” he said softly. “I thought I had it right—I did have it right, or at least right enough to open the first hole. But there was something wrong; something in the numbers, or the application, or...well. The results were...horrible. A world unraveling before my eyes, spinning away into oblivion. Mountains or oceans, it didn't matter. There were people who...”
His eyes went distant, filled with an emotion that Geoffrey could not look at for long.
“They tried to say...something,” the Elder continued distantly. “Hard to do, when your discorporating so quickly. What did they see, as they blew to dust? I don't know. But—”
He shook himself again.
“But, there was hope. The Secure Zones did not fall apart. Things were...odd, in them. Not natural. But they did not discorporate like the rest of the world, and that gave me time.
“I had been working on something else. You know it; it's been in the back of your mind the whole while. Not the main experiment, just and idle thought, but...”
“Time,” said Geoffrey. “It's just another direction. If you can bring two points in reality together, who says they have to be at the same point in time?”
“Yes!” The Elder's smile mirrored Geoffrey's. “Of course, it took a while to work out the math. I was busy with other things; yes, even such a grand idea took a backseat to what was happening in the world. But I figured it out, by God, and in the end, when the rest of the world burned in a quantum fire, I cycled up the original Eld device, entered my calculations—damned complicated, I'll have you know—and started the sequence.”
Geoffrey nodded. He did not doubt the old man for a second. Still...
“You know it began here?” he said. “Or you think?”
The Elder glared at him. “I’ve done the math. The phenomenon begins here, now. You were getting ready to perform the final experiment—you’re only minutes away from completing the math. This is where it begins.”
“Where you think it begins,” said Geoffrey. “You’ve done the math—certainly, I would expect no less. But you hesitated at first, which you would not have done if you were absolutely certain. I should know; I’m perfectly aware of my habits. It does not necessarily begin here.”
“It doesn’t matter! Discorporation is tied directly to wormhole science. That is certain!”
“Perhaps,” said Geoffrey. He raised a hand as the Elder opened his mouth. “Okay—yes, it is certain. I believe you. But! Perhaps it is only a flaw in the math; not a direct result of the application itself.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the Elder again. “The risk is too great. I’ve seen the results, and it was all I could do to hold myself together long enough to get here. To warn you. Turn away, boy—before it’s too late. Once you release the technology, it’s no longer in your hands.”
“Unless I perfect it first,” Geoffrey said calmly. “Unless I release a flawless product, which cannot be tampered with; that does not, ah, discorporate without cause.”
The Elder stared at him. “You’re going to continue.”
“Yes.”
“Despite my warning.”
“Yes.”
“I cannot believe it. Was I really so arrogant?”
Geoffrey smiled. “I will, of course, bear your warning in mind. I did intend to perform a test tonight, but…I will be patient. I will rework the numbers until they are flawless; in fact, if you would grace me with your wisdom, I would have your assistance.”
“I won’t!”
“Nevertheless. I’ve spent my life on this—as you well know. One failed experiment will not discourage me—”
“One failed experiment destroyed all that is,” said the Elder. His eyes left a rim of frost on Geoffrey’s desk. “One failed experiment unraveled the world.”
Geoffrey shrugged. “It will not do so this time. I’ll check the math until there is no question. And—time travel! Now that I know it is possible, I will be careful to include it into my equations.” He frowned. “Of course, it should not work like this. It is not possible to travel to the direct source of your past—only the parallel realities—”
“You prove your ignorance,” said the Elder. “That’s not how it works, and it took me thirty years to move past that misconception. This just shows that you are not prepared to do this properly—you do not even have the right tools! I would not dare it now, with all of my knowledge. You must turn away from this!”
“I will not.”
“Then—”
The Elder hesitated. So did Geoffrey; they both tilted their heads.
“Ozone…” said Geoffrey.
“A precursor,” said the Elder. “It means—”
Pop.
“Ah,” said the Elder.
Geoffrey watched as another figure approached from the dark side of the room. This one was not in a wheelchair, but he walked slowly, leaning heavily on a cane. Light fell on his features as he moved forward; he was aged, although he had not reached the Elder’s advanced years. His face was perhaps two decades younger, but his eyes…his eyes were just as old. Part of Geoffrey thought, Geoffrey the Senior, and it stuck in his head.
“Arrogance!” he cried. “Foolish pride. You must stop this, before it is too late!”
“Ah,” said the Elder again. “This is unexpected.’
Geoffrey the Senior turned to the Elder. “You,” he said softly. “You tried to stop me. I…apologize. I did not know better. But this time I could respond faster. You were incorrect about your assumption—going forward with the knowledge of direct timelines only took twenty years off of the research. I thought you were exaggerating about the complexity—”
“Ha!” said the Elder.
“—but as I said, I didn’t know. Arrogance and pride.”
“What are you talking about?” said Geoffrey.
The Senior turned to him. “I did what I promised. I reworked the formula until I knew it by heart. I dissected it, twisted it around to view from every angle, and finally—finally!—I found the flaw. It took me three more years, but even my pride could not dull the warning.”
“And what did I think about this new formula?” asked the Elder. The question sounded almost idle, but there was a gleam in his eye.
“Nothing,” said the Senior. “You were dead. You weren’t kidding about not having much time, were you?”
“Living in a Secure Zone has an odd affect on the body,” said the Elder. “I know what awaits me. I’ve seen it before.”
“You perfected the formula?” pressed Geoffrey. He did feel a pang at the casual discussion of the Elder’s death—it was his death, after all—but he could not help but ask. “It worked?”
The Senior’s laugh raised the hair on Geoffrey’s arms. “Did it work? It certainly did! It was everything I thought it would be. You—” he nodded to the Elder, “—did not come close to describing the wonders of the new age. That's what it was—a new age for mankind!”
“Then—”
“Then,” said the Senior, and his smile slid off of his face like melting ice. “Then...it was supposed to be a routine stress test. We were calculating distance—there's a threshold, you understand? Of course not; you haven't discovered it yet. But I had worked out a way to exceed it. We needed to breach the wall in order to keep expanding—the needs of a re-formed society are many, and you can't even imagine them now. But instead of breaking through, the wormhold...echoed in some way, reflecting back...”
“Resonance,” said the Elder. “Dear God.”
“Yes,” said the Senior. “Imagine a hole into which all reality drains. We did not lose cohesion—we lost everything. And so quickly...a matter of hours. Like pulling the plug on the universe. I made it to a Stable Zone. I had one prepared, of course—the Elder's warning meant at least that much to me. I finished my work on timelines, and...”
“And here you are,” said Geoffrey. “Come to warn me about the threshold.”
“Come to—what?” The Senior blinked. “No! Come to warn you away from the entire project! I would not listen to the Elder...but surely you will listen to the two of us. You cannot continue. The science is beyond us. Maybe someday...but not now. We simply do not know enough.”
Geoffrey hesitated thoughtfully, and then waved this away. “Nonsense. It will work perfectly, yes? Until I try to breach the threshold. Rest assured—I will not attempt such a thing! I will limit my research in that direction to study, and let future minds handle the issue. Wiser minds, perhaps,” his smile said that there may well be no such thing, “who will move forward with my sternest warnings.”
The Senior stared. “I...I must have been insane.”
“No,” said the Elder. “We just hadn't seen it first-hand. Descriptions will always fail. There are no words for what we did.”
“And so—” began Geoffrey.
Pop.
“Ha,” said the Elder.
“You must not continue!” said the new figure before he even entered the light. He was younger than the other two; Geoffrey automatically thought Geoffrey the Third.
“You must listen to me,” continued the Third. He waved both arms around agitatedly, as though gesturing to an invisible crowd. “It's...awful! I cannot...I cannot...”
He fell heavily into a chair, running his fingers through his hair. “You must...”
“Are...are you all right?” asked Geoffrey. The Elder and the Second exchanged looks and said nothing.
“There were...things,” the Third said dully. “Beyond the threshold. They weren't human. They weren't sane. They spilled out of the wormhole like insects, eating and eating. They had eyes. They saw me. They were...soft. Wet. Like...like...”
The Third fell silent. He refused to look up.
“Well,” said Geoffrey. He noticed that his hands were shaking, and wondered why. “I'm sure we can—”
Pop.
“I say,” said the Senior. “This is getting—”
“You can't!” said the next Geoffrey (the Fourth), stumbling out of the dark. “You have to listen—!”
Pop.
Another Geoffrey appeared. He lunged at the Fourth, swinging wildly and connecting with his jaw.
“Shut up, you idiot!” he shouted. “You were about to tell me how to create a reversible wormhole to send the Others back to their home. Yes, it works, but do you know what that does to reality?”
“I know,” began the Fourth a bit indistinctly. His mouth was already swelling. “I was trying to—”
“Well, don't.”
“But—”
Everybody turned as a sharp sound cracked in the air. The Elder lifted his stick off of the desk again, taking in the room with his glare.
“What a mess,” he said. “It seems that even in trying to help, I have made things worse. Unless...well, boy? Look at what you—we—have wrought. Can you stare us all in the eye and tell us that you will continue?”
Geoffrey cleared his throat. If he was intimidated by the five sets of eyes trying to pin him to the wall, he did not show it.
“Yes,” he said. “With your help—yes. I have not given up. I will not. All scientific breakthrough is possible only by standing on the shoulders of giants. You, gentlemen, are giants...and I know that we can overcome these issues.”
Pop.
Geoffrey did not allow the newest arrival to speak. He raised his hand, and the man—nearly the same age as the original Geoffrey—merely nodded and sat down.
“Everything you have brought to me is repairable. Every problem has a solution—you are all proof of that! The formula can be mastered, the threshold can be breached—or accepted as a natural barrier—the...creatures can be bested, or forced away. If we look at this calmly and rationally, we can overcome everything.
“Now,” he continued, ignoring the stares of the others. He turned to the newest arrival. “What problem do you bring?”
The newest arrival was nearly the same age as Geoffrey—Brother Geoffrey, he thought. The Brother leaned forward.
“None,” he said. He spoke softly, as though his throat was sore, but his eyes were intense. “I bring no problems. Only assistance.”
Geoffrey raised an eye as the others stirred. “Do tell.”
“I have mastered the problems,” said the Brother. “I have found solutions to all of them. But...it took too long. The world needs answers now. I have returned to assist you. With my help the experiment can be completed tonight.”
Geoffrey's eyes glowed. “Tonight?”
“Yes. I have memorized every inch of the formula. I traced the root of the wormhole instability to the right core—the third stabilizer. I always thought that it was necessary, but I was wrong—it is redundant. Worse, simply by breaking the connection to the second and fourth stabilizers, it introduces a small amount of flux. Infinitesimal by all readings...but it is enough, and it accumulates with each use.”
“You can't—” began the Third.
“I can,” said the Brother. He turned his gaze to the Third, and the man flinched. The Brother's eyes were intense. They burned. “I will.”
“No,” said the Senior. He was shaking his head. “There must be a better way.”
“If you do this—” began the Fourth.
“I will,” said the Brother again. “I am the freshest of us—the one who remembers best how I felt this night.” He nodded to Geoffrey. “He will not be turned from this path. It is not in him. All we can do is...assist.”
“Well said,” said Geoffrey.
The Senior stared at him. Finally he said, “I'll take no part in it.”
“I understand,” said the Brother.
“But...you can't—” began the Fourth again.
“Silence!” the Elder roared. He lifted his stick again, then lowered it wearily. “Perhaps...perhaps he is right. We had our chance. If this is the only path...”
“It is,” said Geoffrey.
“Then let us proceed,” said the Brother. He gestured to the papers on the desk. “You will not need those. As I said, I have the formulas memorized—as do you, or near enough. I will explain as we modify the Eld Device.”
Geoffrey stood, and the Brother moved quickly to his side. They walked from the room, toward the lab, and Geoffrey turned once before closing the door.
“I do appreciate what you have done,” he said. “I understand your sacrifice, and I have taken your warnings to heart. You may resent my actions...but I think there is still a piece in all of you that would do the same. Risk has never slowed the likes of us; it is not in us. Together we will do great things. I know it.
“You are, of course, welcome to stay in the manor. It is your home by right, as much as mine. You are my family. I hope we can all come to terms with this night, in time.”
“In time,” said the Elder.
Geoffrey bowed, and closed the door. The others could hear voices through the thick wood.
“But...the machine will not work without the stabilizer,” said the Fourth. “It was the first thing I discovered! It's...basic! Without a stabilizer...”
“The machine echoes,” said the Senior. “Two wormholes are created in the same location, at the same time. The results are...rather spectacular. From a safe distance, of course.”
The Fourth stared at him. “You knew.”
“Of course he knew,” snapped the Elder. He took a deep breath and glanced at the closed door to the laboratory. “We all knew. As you say, it was the first thing we discovered...”
They all turned. Two voices could be heard from behind the door. One was growing more excited by the second, but the other...the other remained soft, emotionless and rasping.
“What do you think he saw?” said the Third. He was trembling.
“Who knows?” said the Senior. “I damned sure don't want to find out.”
A hum filled the air, the sound of a great machine cycling up.
“He was right,” said the Elder. He swept his hand over the desk, collecting the papers in his arms. Then he rolled his wheelchair to the fire; in one motion he threw the papers into it, and the embers reflected in his eyes. “I would never have listened. It's the only way. Godspeed, gentlemen. It's been...interesting.”
The world filled with light. It was indeed spectacular...
From a safe distance.