“There are four base forces in nature: gravity, electromagnetic power, strong, and weak. For electromagnetic power the force particle is the photon. For gravity it’s postulated that ere is a particle called the graviton, but,again, only because of effect, not that we’ve ever seen one. For strong the particle is the gluon. And for weak we have weak gauge bosons.
“Professor Nagoya believed the Shadow could manipulate the strong and weak forces. We can do so, too, but only crudely. A nuclear weapon explodes when we split atoms and the strong forces are released. When uranium decays in a reactor we are using weak forces. Professor Nagoya believed the Shadow could manipulate strong and weak forces like we use electricity and that is how they were able to a certain extent extend portals across parallel worlds and times.”
If the Shadow could control such forces, Dane wondered, why did it need to attack other time lines for power, water, and people?
“There have been scientists who’ve theorized that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, existing side by side, to speak, in what is called the multiverse.” Dane heard Ahana sigh before she continued. “The fundamental problem with trying to understand the universe is that we don’t really I know how it started. If you view time as a line, and we are currently at the right-hand end of it, the universe began at the left-hand end, and that formation might rely on cosmological evolution that is outside the scope of even the deepest theory we can come up with.”
In other words, Dane thought, we don’t know much of anything about what was going on. That brought up the issue Ahana had mentioned earlier-if the Shadow was human, how had it gained this knowledge? Or was the Shadow some alien life force far advanced of mankind?
Did it matter, though? Dane wondered. Nagoya and Ahana’s theories and research had so far yielded little practical information.
Dane took the headphones off and closed the laptop. Science didn’t have the answers. He was going to have to trust the visions and the words he heard. So far they had steered him correctly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Taki felt a spasm of pain pass down the middle of his skull. It was so intense that at first he thought he’d been struck in the head and he brought his hand up, expecting to see it covered in blood. But his skin was intact. The pain was inside.
He blinked. Trying to clear his head. and the pain abated, but he couldn’t see clearly. This had happened before. He sank to his knees and closed his eyes. He cleared his mind using the discipline of the samurai training.
He saw what he needed to do. His heart swelled with pride. It was a great honor to be entrusted with such a thing. He glanced over at Earhart, who was sleeping not far away. He knew if he woke her, she would argue with him. She would want to take his place or have him use one of the two suits they had. But he knew she could not take his place, and he knew she needed the extra suit. They had waited a long time at the Inner Sea for someone to come through, then reluctantly returned to camp. One of the problems with the visions they had from the Ones Before was that the timing of events was rarely locked down. Someone would come, of that Taki had no doubt. But when was more of the question.
He quietly walked over and picked up the metal case holding the skulls. Then he left the camp, making his way to the Inner Sea. When he arrived, he was not surprised to see Rachel leap out of the water and land with a splash. Taki couldn’t miss her, and he turned to the right, walking down to the shoreline. Following her as she led him. Until she halted.
He held the case holding the rest of the crystal skulls in both hands as he walked into the slimy water of the Inner Sea. When the water reached his chest, he paused as Rachel raced about him, cutting a tight circle in the water. He held the case above the water. His lips were moving as he repeated the prayer his mother had taught him, the one that helped a small child be brave when it was dark and the wind howled outside.
His skin tingled and his hair stood upright. The air in front of him flickered, and then suddenly, a black column four feet wide appeared. Taki didn’t hesitate. He moved forward into the portal.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He was known as the Mountain Madman in town. In a mining town full of many strange characters, such a distinguishing moniker meant one was indeed far from the norm.
Bouyer didn’t care what the people in Boulder called him. He only went down there every three or four months for ammunition and other essential supplies. So far he’d made seven trips. It was closing on two years since he’d left Denver after his vision. He’d found the spot he’d “seen” relatively easily: a small cave at the base of the middle Flatiron in rough terrain.
At first he’d camped there, expecting something to happen at any moment. But as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, he’d realized that the vision hadn’t guaranteed a time. He went to work and built a small cabin outside the cave. He hunted for food and did some trapping so he could trade m town. And most of all, he waited. Through two brutal winters, the searing heat of summer, lightning storms and flooding creeks, he waited.
Whenever he went into town he also checked on the latest news. 1875 had been a year of turmoil. Another Army expedition had confirmed the finding of gold in the Black Hills. The government tried to buy the land outright from the Sioux, an offer that was soundly rejected. Then the government did the inevitable, opening the land to whites, breaking their own treaty. To make the area safe, a proclamation was issued ordering all Sioux to report to reservations by 31 January, 1876. Any who did not would be considered hostile.
General Crook, a renowned Indian fighter, had attempted a campaign in the winter of 1875 to 1876, but the Army found these northern plains more brutal than those in the south and managed only to scatter one village before the cold sent them back to the warmth of their forts.
Now with spring, there were rumors of military movement against the Sioux. Bouyer knew the storm clouds were gathering, yet he also knew he had to stay in this place until whatever he was waiting for occurred.
Bouyer walked back and forth along the base of the massive rock face of the second Flatiron. Sheer rock angled up for more than three hundred feet. Before pointing a jagged edge into the sky. Boulder was several miles to the east, on the edge into the sky. Boulder was several miles to the east, on the edge spot.
Bouyer paused in his pacing as storm clouds appeared over the top of the Flatirons. Afternoon thunderstorms were common in the spring, and he paid it little mind. That is until a lightning bolt hit the middle of the Flatiron. Spraying chips of rock down on him.
Bouyer staggered back into the shelter of a pine tree as another bolt struck the rock face. He felt it, the power, the nearness of something. Finally, was all he could think.
In front of him. At the very bottom of the Flatiron, a black circle appeared on the rock about six feet around and pitch black, a darkness that Bouyer didn’t want to go near. He waited as lightning crackled all about. Thunder reverberating off the Flatirons and echoing all around.
A man stepped out of the circle, a man who had been through a gate of fire, his body burned, blistered and savaged by the gate. In his hands was a singed metal case. Bouyer felt his stomach heave as he saw that the man’s eyes were blinded, partially melted from whatever he had experienced. He couldn’t imagine the pain the man must be in. Bouyer had seen captives burned at the stake in Indian camps, but this was far beyond that.