"Hello, Mike. I must say, you look far better than the last time we spoke."
"Is that right?"
"It is. Last time was through a proxy, of course. My carbon copy in the prison Selene put him in. Back then, you were a bit of a mess. Confused and unsure. Now, you seem more … complete."
"Yeah, if you call being united with your murderous split personality complete."
"My apologies for not doing my research. I didn't think to investigate your psychological records, so I was ignorant of your mental state. In my vanity, I felt I was significantly capable of handling your procedure without any glitches. I was wrong."
"So why not fix the problem?"
"Too dangerous. If you don't understand the complexities of manipulating the human mind, you simply cannot understand."
"You're right."
"Really?"
"Yeah — I don't understand. What did you do with Selene?"
His mouth tightened. "Selene and I don't share the same objectives, so I made sure she stays occupied for her duration. She's not a part of this discussion. What I have to share is for your ears only."
Ms. Sinn walked over to the symphonic organ centered in the front of the hall. Taking a seat on the bench, she began to play. I expected some horror-movie style of sound, but under her deft fingers and feet, soaring jazz music swelled and filled the chamber with fluid, harmonic sound.
Faraday nodded in time to the score. "Simple times, Mike. Did you enjoy your little trip back into history?"
"For what it was worth. Pre-Cataclysm life looks like something outta a picture show."
"This was a transitional time for the US and the world at large. Innocence was shattered in the first World War. By this time, the ideological viewpoint was already lost. The evils of dictators and the slaughter of millions stained the entire worldview. Patriotism was at an all-time high, but so was ignorance. The country started to see a different reflection behind the burnished coating of their nationalistic mirror, and they were frightened by what they beheld."
I placed a gasper between my lips and let it dangle there. "Yeah. I know the feeling. But before you go off on a tangent, let me cut in with a question: why?"
"That's a very broad question."
"Why here? What is this place to you?"
"Ah, yes." He glanced around at the ornate, Beaux-Arts style auditorium. "This is history, Mike. Not yours, but mine. One of my forefathers worked in this institute at the time, shaping the minds of the future."
"Bernard Faraday."
The old man smiled as if pleased. "That's right. He was one of the learned minds of his times, but no Einstein by any means. Perhaps that was why his rudimentary studies were ignored by the masses."
I sighed. "This is informative and all, but howzabout we cut to the part where it involves you and me, doc."
"Very well, Mike. My ancestor determined the presence of intrusive energy, mainly as a byproduct of Germany's obsession with it. Hitler was determined to unlock those secrets, and thank God he never succeeded. Aberrant energy in the hands of that man? History would have been altered forever."
"Aberrant energy. You're not the first person to mention that." I sat up straighter. "That's what caused the Cataclysm, wasn't it?"
"In a roundabout way. Long story short, Bernard Faraday thought the energy extraterrestrial in nature. The experts in Germany thought it as supernatural. They were both wrong. It was advanced technology. And it was ours."
"Ours? Like, made in America?"
"No, Mike. Like made in the future."
He paused, allowing me to sit in stunned silence. Ms. Sinn's organ music changed, altering to a more dramatic sound to match the moment.
"The future," I finally said. "Time travel."
"Time connection would be a better description. The short version is this: in the future, humanity abandons physical existence for digitaclass="underline" their bodies in suspended animation but their minds active, living out endless scenarios in a world much like Elysia: complete immersion. But whether by accident or sabotage, the mind-hive suffers a massive catastrophe, freeing the psionic energy of billions in a psychic supernova. At some point, a wormhole is created, connecting the future to the past. This mass collective of desperate minds tries to survive by the only way possible, projection through the wormhole connecting them to their source of origin."
I blinked, connecting the dots. "Here. They came back to Earth."
"Their energy returned to Earth. In the collapsing spacetime tunnel, the mind-hive shredded, causing fragments to skip across time and invade our reality in nightmarish events called Aberrations. The phenomena culminated in a sequence of closely connected events: Desolation, Age of Imperials, Skygate Collapse, and finally, the Cataclysm. You know the rest: construction of the Havens, division of the Territories, and here we are."
"Here we are," I muttered. "Completely lost. Nice history lesson and all, but what the hell does that have to do with you or me?"
His expression saddened, and for a moment he looked ancient, a man with an impossible weight on his shoulders. "Quite simple, actually. I'm afraid that I may inadvertently be responsible for it all."
"You? Come on, Faraday — there's no way for you to know that."
"No? Consider this: Bernard Faraday possessed samples from the remnants of an energy device known as Die Glocke. Have you heard of it?"
"Way before my time, Doc."
He nodded. "Indeed, but history should never be forgotten. The Allied Forces thought it was an experimental Nazi weapon, but in truth, it was an attempt by Hitler's pseudoscientific task force to attract and breach an Aberration threshold. The plan was thwarted, and the device destroyed. Still, aberrant energy samples were smuggled from Germany to America, where my forefather made it his life's work to gain an understanding of the bizarre technology. He died having only scratched the surface of the potential. But here's the shocker: when I examined the samples, broke the elements down to their coding, I recognized some of what I found. It was far more complex than my rudimentary work, but the skeleton, the foundation, was as familiar as my own reflection. It was the same coding I created to build Elysia, just immeasurably advanced."
"That's impossible, Faraday. You weren't even born yet."
"No, but if future fragments skipped across time, then history is full of these moments of unexplained phenomena. Aberrant energy is simply the corrupted form of that species' psionic power, coming home to feed on the past. My advancements in transhumanism will continue to evolve. Human intellect and physiology will blend with technology until it culminates into a new species. And if we don't determine the point of its eventual corruption, the loop of destruction will be inescapable."
"Nice." I lit the gasper and leaned back, filling my lungs with nicotine-laced fog. "The way I see it, if you wanna stop this crazy future from happening, all you gotta do is kill yourself right now. Problem solved."
Faraday stared into space, eyes slightly glazed. "Precisely."
"What?"
A smile deepened his cheek wrinkles. "We won't open that box right now, especially when I know you have another question to ask."
"Yeah: why?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Why me, Faraday? Why go through all the trouble of keeping me alive? You knew I was ordered to shut down your little Haven, kill you, and make off with the data. You had me at your mercy, but you had my memories remixed and set me up as some gumshoe stereotype instead. If that gonzo story you just spouted is even halfway true, what in the world can I do about it?"
"Haven’t you guessed? At one time, you were the HSSC's best agent, Mike. In return, they destroyed your psyche and made you a shell of a human being that needed a split personality to deal with the trauma. Now, I want you to be my agent. But instead of working to dominate humanity, I'm allowing you to serve it. And just maybe … save it."