Timestone

Chapter Twenty-Two ϟ Gun

When I hold the cube to my face, nothing happens. Turning it over in my fingers, I discover a faint circle on one of the faces. I press it, and a display pops up in my vision. I reach out and tap a familiar Open Map button. Colored squares fly in from all directions and begin to self-assemble. I stand inside a map of Tempus, just like the one Tanek had.

"What is it?" asks Vela, sensing my excitement.

I hold out a finger to ask for a minute.

She surprises me with a jab to my ribs. "Tell me!" she demands.

"A map . . . It's a map," I relent.

I spend a minute or two flying around and zooming in and out. I find my cave entrance on the mountain. I follow the same general route we took to get to this cave. Vela giggles each time my arms fling out as I manipulate the view.

"You are a terrible dancer," she laughs.

I laugh with her as I imagine how ridiculous I must look—holding my fingers in odd positions and waving my hands about.

I press the exit button, and the display breaks apart and floats away.

Grabbing the other cube, I turn it on, and a new display appears. This one doesn't seem like as much fun. Funny-looking rectangles lie scattered about. A label sits below each rectangle. I describe what I see to Vela and read some labels aloud.

"Research. Experiments. Designs. Notes." I tap on the rectangle labeled Research. Instead of the satisfying button click, this one produces a soft, ruffling sound. The rectangle expands to reveal a new set of rectangles: Timestone, Spacetime, Teleportation, Paradox, and Temporal Dilation. I tap on the Timestone rectangle. It expands, revealing yet another set of slightly different rectangles. These are taller than they are wide. The top right corner of each folds down on itself.

I tap one, and it grows into a long page of text. I skim through it. There are so many long words and strange symbols that I give up trying to understand. I swipe it away and continue exploring.

This time, I tap on Designs, and something catches my attention. A rectangle sits in the upper corner, labeled Timestone Gun. I spend a while reading and investigating diagrams of the teleportation gun.

"Vela, it's called a timestone gun," I say excitedly.

She doesn't reply.

I turn to see her wrapped in her blanket, sleeping soundly. So, I keep reading. The material is challenging, but I want to learn everything I can about this gun.

ϟ ϟ ϟ

I float in an infinite expanse of pure white light. Strange words and symbols dance around my head, but none rest long enough to make sense of them. I sweep them away with my mind and feel peace. I want to drift here forever.

Then, I feel someone's presence—the voice that urged me to return to the cave. There's something it wants me to understand. A thought bursts into my head so powerfully it jolts me awake.

"The map. You missed something."

ϟ ϟ ϟ

I jerk awake. A large blanket covered in funny designs hovers over me. Confusion fills my head as I strain to figure out where I am and what's floating above me. Designs of the timestone gun come into focus. I'm staring at the floating display. The blanket is a rectangle of text I had been reading when I fell asleep.

I had been reading about paradoxes. A brief definition tells me that a paradox is a self-contradicting statement or situation that leads to a senseless or illogical conclusion. It goes on to describe a temporal paradox, which involves the modification of time.