A Forgotten Power

Chapter 07: A Look Forward

"You can't be serious," Jaz said with a horrified expression on his face. "If you start messing with the timeline, you could make things worse."

"How much worse can they get?" Alexis demanded.

"I'd say extinction is worse," Jaz pointed out. "Things may not be good here, but at least we're alive."

"A temporary condition at best," Alexis countered. "Those in power don't know how things work. They couldn't repair the city systems if their lives depended on it. Workers get sick and die all the time. What happens when there are none to replace them? The upper class will survive only until the lower classes die off or become too sick to do the work. The whole system is going to collapse. If you don't agree, why don't we put it to the test?"

"What do you have in mind?" Jaz asked.

"Let's use one of the bones I brought back and open a window into the future," Alexis suggested. "We can have a look at what is to come, and we'll both see for ourselves if it's worth changing."

"Alright," Jaz relented after a silent moment of consideration. "We'll need a security field established to keep anything from the other timeline from coming into ours."

"Good idea," Alexis agreed. "You can set that up while I find the right inscription to put on the bone."

Jaz returned to his work station, but he kept the occasional, wary eye on Alexis as she scanned the ancient text. Accessing the internal systems for the room, he created a spherical force field around the empty exam table at the back of the room. He transferred the controls to a handheld unit he retrieved from the bottom drawer of his desk and switched off the energy barrier until needed.

Leaving the computer for the moment, he opened an access panel on the wall and removed a trio of crystalline disks with golden wires suspended within them. The disks glowed bright white until disconnected, turning dark almost instantly.

Alexis found the information she required and input all the relevant information into the computer for it to begin the automated laser etching of the femur she placed under the emitter array. The red beam quickly burned the appropriate markings on the ancient piece of organic material. When the process was complete, she placed the bone on the rear table.

"How do you activate it?" Jaz asked her.

"The inscription isn't complete," Alexis informed him. "I left off one line in order to have it not automatically open the time window before we're ready. Do we have sensors ready to take detailed scans?"

"Yes," Jaz confirmed. "I've taken the precaution of disconnecting all network access in and out of the room. No one will see this but us."

"Excellent," she praised. "Let's have a look into the future."

Retrieving a laser scalpel from her desk, Alexis took careful aim and applied the last line to the marks already in place upon the bone. The symbols transformed from black burn marks to glowing blue glyphs. The femur cracked in the center of its upper most surface, golden light shooting straight upward in a two foot tall column.

Jaz was so surprised by the occurrence, he almost forgot to turn on the shield. He pressed the activation switch in his hand, and the field encompassed the table and bone in a transparent bubble of iridescent energy.

"What are the scanners picking up?" Alexis queried.

"Not much," Jaz replied after activating a readout hologram, the projected information hovering in the air nearby. "I can tell where the city used to be, but sensor readings would seem to indicate it's been exposed to the atmosphere for at least twenty or thirty years."

"Any life form readings?" Alexis asked.

"None," Jaz reported. He adjusted the motion sensitive, virtual controls under the sensor readout. "Expanding search radius. Still nothing. Extending sensor range to maximum. No life signs detected."

"It seems the bio-raiders lost their fight against time," Alexis mused.

"It looks like everyone did," Jaz observed. "How far in the future is this?"

"Approximately two hundred years," Alexis answered. "So, sometime in the next hundred seventy or hundred eighty years, the city is going to be destroyed. I suppose it might've happened sooner, but we know the barrier dome fails somewhere around that time and lets in the outside air."

Jaz tor his gaze from the holographic displays, nausea churning his stomach. When he looked away, he noticed something else.

"Alexis," Jaz said suddenly. "Look at the bone."

She focused her attention on the laser etched femur and noticed a change. The ends had turned a dull black as if burnt, and the darkness was slowly spreading inwards toward the middle of the bone. As the burned section passed each glowing symbol, they went dark, and the intensity of the golden light of the time window dimmed slightly.

"I think the power is being used up," Alexis theorized.

The darkness swallowed up the last of the glowing symbols, turning the entire bone black. The window into the desolate future collapsed, shrinking away to nothing.

"Now that you've seen the future that awaits us," Alexis told Jaz, "do you have any problem with us adjusting the timeline for a chance at a better outcome?"

"Not anymore," he relented. "Practically anything is better than what we saw."

"I agree," she confirmed.

"Where, or rather when, do we start?" he asked.

"I think it'd be better near the beginning, before civilization has a chance to establish itself," Alexis responded. "We want to lay the groundwork for a new society, not spend all our time and effort tearing up what's already there."

Jaz nodded.

"I'll examine the book for the specifics," she went on. "As soon as I'm certain we have what we need, we'll make the jump through time into the past."