17

An Extraordinary Discovery

It was sweltering out. Mary was glad to get a chance to get back to the bookstore. Though, now that she thought of it, it wasn't air-conditioned. Things were coming together. Mary felt her abilities growing and moving like an underwater current. She saw flashes of images, events. Some terrifying. She wasn't sure if they were visions of the future or alternate reality. She'd contacted Andrew to study the book. With all of this running and jumping around town, if they really wanted to do something worthwhile they needed to now what came before. A sage man in the 18th century recorded all that he saw and understood and thought on this secret phenomenon. She was excited to find out what they could glean.

. . .

She came in right when the store was getting ready to close. As she walked in the old fans were running and the ceiling fan was going as well. It made for a slightly cooler place than outside.

"Hey, Andrew!" She called. Andrew smiled as he rang up a customer's stack of old books. She'd noticed that many of them were of alien abduction. All of a piece, she thought. She hung out near the classic science fiction section near the back of the tiny store until closing time. Once Andrew closed the store and drew the shades down they got to work. 

"How are you holding up, Mary?"

"I'm okay. it might seem strange but I'm glad I went through that kidnapping. I keep having these dreams. That experience in that tank. It's almost like I was meant to see something in there." Andrew paused cocking his head to the side in curiosity.

"It awoke something the? You don't think they . . changed you without your knowing?"

"Who knows, Andrew? They may have done that to all of us. Actually, I'm sure they haven't. Not enough time. I was saved in the nick of time. Anyway, enough dreams and things. I know that book holds answers for us." Andrew led her down into the basement where he kept the book in a special box. He unlocked the box and they both lift it out. Andrew moved over to a small desk with a lamp and turned it on. Mary carefully set the old book down and flipped through it.
"I found that the dates between 1780 and 1783 and there are other important time periods the author lays at as well. but pay special attention to this time. I think you'll find something very interesting there. Those dates are where the most important discoveries and information, as far as I can tell, were recorded," said Andrew, pulling up a chair beside her. "Some in particular in regards to time and place."
"Time and place?"
"Oh yes," he said.
"Thanks." She carefully turned to the page in the journal dated 1780:

April 1, 1780, Tuesday. I  came upon a curious discovery so momentous that I nearly fainted in excitement and fear. While walking along in the park after I'd escorted Miss Davenshire and her friend Miss Blakely home and decided to go a different way home from the route I usually chose, I'd come upon something I could only describe as an anomaly, either Natural or Supernatural. I'd gone down a small dirt road through an abandoned old apple orchard on the Asbury grounds and walked through something that I could only describe as a displaced or removed point in the world. Removed from reality. An another world right next to my own. It happened that my eyes were upon a butterfly which alighted upon a buttercup and then flew on its circuitous path and in a second the insect had turned itself into a moth as it alighted upon another flower. I moved and bent down to pick this flower as the thing flew away and when I brought it to me and stood up, the flower's colors became far more brilliant and beautiful. I stepped one foot forward and it seemed the color of the world changed. It was dull, grayed, almost a different species, into one quite lovely. I began to notice that my own hands seem to shift in and out of focus and sight as if I were standing in a shifting place; a place that was not grounded in this world. my first thought was that I had passed through a fairy ring and perhaps that such things were not tales told to children or small folk but I was not certain of that idea. This seemed something different, and I saw no fairies.

The passages to these journal entries went on as the author explained in great detail the things he saw in this small pocket of shifted space. Mary was fascinated. Was this an alternate reality?
"I seem to remember reading once at a later entry date that the man had come upon another place just like that, some odd pocket where things just weren't placed in time correctly," said Andrew.
"What do you suppose it means?"
"I think it has to do with the aliens finding a doorway from their home in the universe to Earth through some type of wormhole technology. I think those pockets are places where the fabric of time and space has been opened where they've traveled through. And perhaps left behind."
"How long do you think they remain?"
"Well, according to the journal it can take years before they fade. And even then I don't think that they disappear without a trace."
"What makes you say that?"
"Haven't you've ever heard of certain places in the world where time seems to slow down or disappear altogether? I get the feeling people are talking about these wormhole "holes". Perhaps if the oddness or activity is stranger even more dangerous on one area-"
"The wormhole was either very powerful and stable and perhaps remained there for a long time before disappearing. Like places where people pass through or go over while traveling and simply disappear and are never heard from again?"
"Or maybe it works in reverse. Perhaps the more unstable the wormhole, the more unstable and fluctuating the place that was opened."
"Good thinking," said Andrew.
"I think. . .what if a signature is left behind even when it closes? Andrew! Think of that!"
"Read more," he said. "I'll put the pot on." He was just as excited as she was. Mary cringed inwardly a little when he mentioned coffee. Andrew's cofee wasn't exactly the finest around. It was terrible. It tasted like stale sludge water. But it also gave her a warm, comforting feeling. This old dusty, musty place made her feel at home. She would welcome a cup, even in this heat, bad as Andrew's coffee was. 
Mary continued looking through the journal entries between the dates he'd given her. She found a term used only by her and trillion in regards to the redshifters, here in the journal. The entry was marked with a note in red ink. March 9, 1783:

I met a man today who wasn't a man. What I mean to say is that he is one of The Others, the men who aren't men and come from another world. I know this about him because he told me and then demonstrated to me that he wasn't a human being. My first reaction was to think this creature was really a demonic presence, or perhaps one of the fair folk, as some call them, but his flesh and blood was enough to convince me that he wasn't of this stripe. I met him while strolling in the Vienna Wood and now that the pockets of strange time lapses and difference places are known to me and as I've come in contact with other unearthly things I cannot understand, things are coming together a bit. he told me he was a visitor from another world not one fo Supernatural kind but one from another world in our natural universe. I don't know if this put me at ease that I was not conversing with a devil - thought I still could not be sure - I found him fascinating and wanted to know more about him. . .

July 18th, 1783:

He has become a pleasant acquaintance. Mr. Flynn, he calls himself. I invited him in for tea this afternoon. We talked more of the place anomalies. They are scattered around the globe, according to him. Not all of them are properly operational, some are very dangerous. He talked of those of his people who try to come through and never make it here or never make it back to where they are from. These "doorways" collapse unexpectedly. We spoke of mysterious disappearances of humans. He said some of them can be attributed to these portals. And to what he calls The Expansion of his people, a race called hanyar, from a faraway world circling a distant star. he said that the machinery they used to create these doorways was not yet stable enough to hold them open for very long and that this race to come to Earth was a good thing for my kind. That they would have to stop and correct their errors and this would take prodigious amounts of time. Until then there was time for us to fight back or even stop their progress. I should think that if anyone knew or heard these odd conversations they should think us both mad. This was one of many conversations I'd had with him and I sensed he is given towards pity and graciousness and beneficence toward humankind, for which I am glad for. It sets so many theological questions afire in my mind, but not now on that. As for now I know for him that humankind is in an invisible, quiet war that has been going on for some time. At least a century he has said. Who knows if he has told me the truth but I think he should not lie. He said something extraordinary:

"This world is yours, not ours. It was once our world. You may be shocked to know this. We were once humans like you, but we evolved so far beyond the natural godly genetic and biological parameters set for us that we cannot experience life the way you any longer. Though there are advantages to our way of life as near quantum beings the early memory of what means to be human has never left us biologically. Yours is truly suprior to our way of life and existance. One of our people, The Reactionary, as that one is called, created a planet-wide stir in consciousness by suggesting, violently in many ways, that what we have become are abominations and that our only salvation is to go back to what we originally were. but they intend to destroy their cousins, humankind, to do this. In this arrogance of moving beyond nature and in wanting to go back, they have learned nothing. This, I believe, is our legacy for ourselves and our fate for we wanted it. We must live with it. So a few of us are here to disrupt their progress when we can, the few of us that survived the purge that destroyed those who did not go along with the Expansion. Take care of this blue word of yours and each other. You humans will be fighting a quiet war one day. There will come a time when they will try to take over humanity and this world again. You must wake up and defend what you have. Do not go our way. Progress is good to a point but one must understand what one is progressing toward, otherwise, is it progress? We were once you. we now want that gift back and would snatch it from you. So long ago it is that we underwent the change that it is beyond count. My people are planning a Great War, the one to end all wars; the one that we feel will end humanity. When all the nations of the earth come together for war against each other, know that hanyar are behind it, the great plan for the Expansion. The Great War will be the precursor to the Expansion."

"This man was calling predicting WWI centuries before it happened!" She said to herself in shock. "As devastating as it was, humanity had managed to survive it. So what now?" She read on:

"They will not stop until they have gained victory. Beware of strange worldwide events and worldwide disasters and constant conflicts and wars, for this is us behind them, engineering the downfall of the human societies." This, the man said to me. His demeanor was solemn, his face sad and drawn but my heart had never felt more terror. 

Mary looked up from the journal. After the Great War there were certainly countless conflicts and another world war and many awful smaller wars since then all over the world. The world was enmeshed in war like it had never been. But she didn't quite understand. Andrew had come back bringing a cup a coffee for her. She took it and pushed the journal away so as not to spill any coffee on it. Andrew took a sip.
"Andrew, what I don't understand is this. It says that the aliens are behind the World War I. But we survived that. What's the significance of WWI? We're still here," she said.
"But what are things like now? If you read the work of historians of that era you'll find that many of them agree that that war changed the whole world. Things were never the same after that. The Great War was an epoch-defining moment in human history, and not a positive one. The peace we had was forever destroyed. We've always had wars, yes, but not like that one. The whole world had gone mad. After humanity survived it, they set to work engineering disasters, wars, conflicts, creating diseases on an unimaginable scale in the 20th century. The redshifters are behind the scenes engineering our downfall in these things."
"Rather clever, if evil," Mary said quietly. "Which is why we must work quietly so that they don't know about us. If only we could find one of these pockets of time left behind in one of these doorways."
"What do you want to do?"
"I'm not sure but I have dreams and I feel that perhaps I could draw some knowledge or information about them from just being in such a place."
"Dreams of the future. Do you think it's part of your abilities, Mary?"
"Yes. They'are growing. I see things sometimes minutes before they happen, Andrew. I wonder if I could get a wealth of information from something they've left behind. .. " she set her cup down and touched the leather journal feeling the warmth in it in her hand. 
"How do you know you'll find anything?"
"I don't but we have to figure these things out as we go when Trillion isn't here. This journal, for instance. I wonder if I can find out who had this journal before you did and how did it end up in the garbage?" Andrew shrugged.
"I once thought of trying to find out but I'm afraid a redshifter will find out about it and come and sieze the book away. You never know who they are," he said.She gazed at the book.
"Andrew?"
"Yes?"
"In your reading of the book, how many places did the author note have doorways. I want to find some these places?" Mary said.
"The original author of the journal was a native of England and he found two such places in England and he mentioned several other places told to him by the redshifter, outside Vienna I think being one. Call Trillion and let him know. He'll fund your visit if you wish to go and explore this."
"Would you come with me? I don't want to go by myself."
"Oh, I don't know. I couldn't leave the shop. Not that I get much business, but my first business is here in case the others on the team need this place," he said regretfully. Mary sighed.
"I think I'll have to go to at least one of these locations. If I can get any clue or see something, that will give the team a wealth of information we can use. Or that's my hope. Perhasp I'll be a seer," she said.
"The world needs seers. Always has. The problem is that they rarely listen to them," said Andrew.
"All we need are a few people to listen. If we can get that, and build up this team, we'll have a chance to defeat the hanyar before they wreak more havoc that can't be turned back," she said.
"The hanyar. First time I've heard that word said aloud in connection to The Others. Isn't it strange that they were us? We're fighting, in a way, our own kind. Sad, really. It's something humans have done since the dawn of time."