Shankara

Chapter 6 - CONSTELLATIONS

Edwin's eyes were shut, he was alone and absorbed in his mind, and yet he had never been more present than now. He had just finished asking Chloe some things, and he was busy rearranging his thoughts and ideas into a coherent structure so he could present them to Eve and Connor and perhaps as well justify why, in the middle of the night, he needed to see them so urgently. From the instant he awoke from his self-induced stupor at the very sound of his bolt clanging onto the ground, his mind had been racing but clear. He had stood up straight in his bed, as if trying to conduct his thoughts to bubble up to the top, and then quite suddenly, he had raced out of his room. At first, he had looked helplessly left and right, realizing he did not know where to go, but Chloe had sensed him probably before he ever knew it himself, and pink and purple-hued arrows appeared on the walls in front of him with the words 'Holo Deck' and a smiley face written below. He had run as fast as he could and had followed the arrows for what seemed a suspended moment in time, an eternity of sorts, but he knew it could only have been a minute at most, and yet his heart was racing and pounding and doing that dance of mixed anticipation and excitement he was starting to know well.

"Constellations!" The word stuck to his palate now like a spider web he'd been caught in but had not realized until the bolt had literally bolted the word into his brain. He had had a slight mind tremor when he had seen the dots representing the magnetic anomalies that Chloe had displayed, but he couldn't place it at the time. "Papua New Guinea!" he exclaimed again under his bated breath. He should have known. These uncorrelated thoughts at first had reminded him of something; he had felt it somehow, as if his mind was trying to tie two seemingly very different-shaped pieces of a puzzle, but the day had been so packed that he had let the thought glide right through him. And now the same thought was propelling him forward. "Oh man, I love you Benji!" he exclaimed loudly this time to no one in particular as the double doors of the Holo Deck swooshed open in its ever-appeasing sound. Alone for the first few minutes, he surpassed automatically any logical and mental barrier, letting himself be immersed totally in the possibilities. It was crazy, he thought to himself, but it didn't mean just because you considered it, that it became true, his uncle had told him many, many times. Chloe had confirmed his initial thoughts, but there was still some researching she had to do to confirm all these phenomena were indeed linked like he thought them to be. Shankara, the meteors, the magnetic anomalies, and the beachings. They were one and the same. He just felt it and knew it deep inside his bones. In the end, it had been his uncle who had given him the answer.

"Meaning and reality are two very different things, m'hijo," he could hear him say over the sounds of the lapping waves. So many times, he had just wanted to not listen to his uncle's well-pressed wisdom, and yet now, it had made the whole difference.

As he opened his eyes and slowly lifted his head, he realized Eve had come in and was not too far to his right; seeing he had been concentrating his thoughts, she had not wanted to disturb him, and she handed him a warm cup of what smelled like the most delicious cocoa. A sleepy Connor came in, sluggish but alert.

"Where's my cocoa?" he winked at Eve. "Alright," he continued without skipping a beat, "This better be good, kid." But Edwin knew he meant it in a chiding manner. It seemed the man never got exasperated or mad, even on no sleep and no hot cocoa. Edwin smiled confidently and stepped forward, and both Eve and Connor noticed the change in his demeanor. He was growing up fast, their shared look said.

"Okay, Chloe, let's get this over with. I need to know if I am stark crazy or just Tony Stark crazy. Chloe, could you bring up the magnetic and beaching dots?" Edwin asked.
A 3-D generated image of the earth appeared, and as it started spinning slowly, the different colored dots started appearing, each representing a magnetic anomaly and its supposed linked beaching. "And now could we forget about the earth and simply leave the dots, and if you could be so kind as to project them outward so we are not looking down on them, but rather up at them, as if we were looking at stars?" In an instant, the blue marble disappeared with all its features, and in its place, an empty sphere with colored dots. They were now in the middle of this imaginary sphere, looking up at the colored dots. Edwin turned to them and started his PowerPoint.