Smith's Monthly #27 Page 15

  Sophie hadn’t felt this nervous about anything for a very, very long time.

  “These were in a family album,” Sophie said, “handed down from a man by the name of Bryce who lived in Grapevine Springs and liked to take photos. Our names are on the back.”

  Dawn looked at the photo, then at the back, then laughed and handed the photo back to Sophie.

  Sophie had not expected Dawn to laugh.

  “Actually,” Dawn said, smiling first at Wade, then at Sophie, “that photo is on the topic of why I came to see you today.”

  “How?” Sophie said. “I just got the photos in this morning’s mail.”

  “The reason is very long and difficult to explain,” Dawn said, laughing. “But actually that photo proves a lot. Just not what we were expecting.”

  “I’m not following,” Wade said.

  “Director Parks and a few others want to explain to you better than I can,” Dawn said. “Come on, I got a car waiting out front to take us back to the institute.”

  Dawn laughed and then asked, “Do you two trust me?”

  Sophie nodded and saw that Wade nodded as well.

  “Then come with me,” Dawn said, taking the picture and opening the office door and heading out. “I’m going to change your lives and in doing so explain this picture.”

  EIGHTEEN

  October 18th, 2018

  Boise, Idaho

  WADE FOLLOWED DAWN out of the front door of the institute library to a white Cadillac SUV parked at the curb. A man was sitting behind the wheel and Dawn indicated that he and Sophie get in the back seat while she climbed into the front seat.

  “My husband, Madison,” Dawn said, introducing Madison Rogers, another famous historian as if he was just her cab driver. Madison had on jeans and a tan shirt that looked like it was comfortable and well worn.

  Wade managed to not choke and beside him Sophie coughed.

  Madison Rogers was one of the top experts on the mining wars that had gone on in the west and his books were the bibles in anything to do in that area. Wade had read them all a number of times and used one in his classroom in LA.

  “Nice finally meeting you both,” Madison said. “Heard a great deal about both of you.”

  Wade just choked again.

  “Wonderful meeting you as well,” Sophie said.

  “Look what they found just today,” Dawn said, handing Madison the picture.

  He looked at it and then laughed, handing the picture back to Dawn. “Wow, great timing. You two are as good as your reputations led us all to believe.”

  Dawn laughed as well, but Wade wasn’t sure what was so funny. Or even what Madison had meant.

  “Hang on and we’ll start explaining everything in a few minutes,” Dawn said, turning to buckle her seat belt.

  Sophie reached over and took Wade’s hand and he felt better just knowing they were going into this together.

  Whatever it was.

  It took only a minute for Madison to pull the Cadillac into the driveway of the institute main building.

  The main garage doors opened as he went past the big house and toward the garage and he pulled into a spot.

  The garage doors closed behind him.

  “Is it clear, Goldie?” Madison asked into the air as they all got out.”

  “Yes,” Goldie said.

  Both Sophie and Wade glanced around.

  Dawn smiled at them. “All the interactive computers in the institute are called Goldie, even here in the big garage.”

  “Makes sense,” Sophie said.

  “First off,” Dawn said as they all stopped near the back of the Cadillac, “I need to remind you about your Do Not Disclose agreement. Do you both stand by that still?”

  “Completely,” Sophie said.

  “Completely as well,” Wade said.

  He felt odd that she had asked them that here in a garage, but clearly he and Sophie were about to be shown a secret of the institute that Dawn and the others didn’t want out.

  Sophie took his hand and they both moved to follow Dawn and Madison.

  Madison headed toward a wall that held a workbench covered with some gardening tools hanging on pegs. As he approached, a hidden door opened.

  Sophie squeezed Wade’s hand in sudden worry.

  “If you love secret rooms and passageways,” Dawn said, “you’re going to love what we are about to show you.”

  Wade wasn’t sure how he felt about secret passages, but he didn’t say anything as they went into what appeared to be a fairly modern tunnel that was well lit and allowed he and Sophie to walk side-by side.

  “We are going in under the main institute building,” Madison said as he and Dawn walked ahead.

  After about a hundred paces the tunnel opened up into a small room and Madison opened a door and indicated they go on ahead, following Dawn.

  On the other side of the door was a staircase leading both up and down.

  “Up goes into a hidden room in the main building above,” Dawn said as she headed down. “This goes down into the main cavern below the institute.”

  “Cavern?” Wade asked.

  “All safe and very large,” Madison said from behind them. “The large mansions on either side of the institute building are also part of this property and the caverns down here are three levels deep and run under all three properties.”

  Wade couldn’t even begin to imagine that size and Sophie said nothing, just held onto his hand tightly.

  After what felt like two flights of stairs, Dawn opened a door and led them out into what clearly was a large cavern carved right out of the dark lava rock.

  Wade just felt stunned. The room was huge and with very high ceilings carved out of stone. What looked like a dozen couch and chair groupings filled the main part of the area, many of them turned to face a large stone fireplace.

  Along the far wall was a long kitchen counter with a modern kitchen behind it. Two other people were there, one sitting with his back to them, the other was a woman standing behind the counter.

  “Welcome,” the woman said.

  At that point the man turned around and smiled at them.

  Wade wasn’t sure his legs would move. The man was wearing a cowboy hat and had on a long oilcloth duster.

  The man was Marshal Duster Kendal, the same man who had been in a bunch of photos they had found.

  NINETEEN

  October 18th, 2018

  Boise, Idaho

  IF NOT FOR holding Wade’s hand, Sophie wasn’t sure if she would have been able to go with Dawn and Madison down into the big cavern. Her mind was just not processing what was going on and what she was seeing.

  In the middle of Boise there was a huge cavern carved out of the rock? How was that even possible?

  None of this made any sense at all.

  And then the man at the long kitchen counter had turned around and it was the man from the pictures out of the past. The very same man, yet that wasn’t possible either.

  Why would this guy pretend to be a historical figure?

  Sophie and Wade stopped, hand-in-hand, facing the two new people and Madison stopped beside them. Dawn went around the end of the counter to stand beside the woman.

  “Professor Silverman, Dr. Wade,” Madison said, “I would like you to meet Bonnie and Duster Kendal, two of the greatest mathematical minds of all time.”

  Wade actually moved first and shook Bonnie’s hand, then Duster’s hand.

  Sophie did the same, just staring at Duster.

  Mathematicians? What were they doing here and why was one pretending to be a person from the past? Dressed the same and all.

  Dawn handed the picture Sophie and Wade had found to Bonnie who glanced at it and laughed and slid it to Duster, who also laughed.

  “Seems you might know who I am,” Duster said.

  “You got photographed enough,” Bonnie said, shaking her head like a wife would shake her head at her husband. “Anyone looking at any picture from the west would know
you.”

  “How?” Wade asked.

  Dawn held up her hand. “We have a story to tell you and we need to tell it in some sort of order, but first let’s all get something to drink and move over to more comfortable chairs.”

  Both Sophie and Wade just wanted water.

  Sophie wasn’t sure with all this if her stomach could handle any more than water, actually. She had no idea what was going on, but two of the greatest historians of all time were going to try to explain it all to her.

  Thank heavens Wade was beside her, going through the same thing.

  The seating area they went to was close to the long kitchen bar and consisted of two couches and two large chairs, all done in brown cloth. An area rug was under the grouping that was of a light-tan pattern color and a large wooden coffee table sat in the middle.

  Bonnie and Duster sat on one couch and Duster put his cowboy hat beside him on the edge of the couch. Dawn took one end-chair and Madison another and Sophie and Wade took the other couch facing Bonnie and Duster over the coffee table.

  Dawn then handed them each tablets she had brought from the kitchen counter area. “Before we go any farther, we need you to look up Bonnie and Duster Kendal.”

  Sophie did just that as beside her Wade did the same thing.

  Thousands of articles came up about the two people sitting silently across from her in this impossible cavern.

  It didn’t take long for her to discover that they really were major mathematicians. And from a quick glance, they also had funded hundreds of scholarships in history and mathematics, and buildings on many major campuses were named after them.

  She came across picture after picture of them. Clearly the two people sitting across from her were who they had been introduced to be.

  So now she found herself sitting in an impossible cavern with two top mathematicians and two of the most acclaimed historians of all time. This was just flat strange.

  And getting stranger by the moment.

  There was the sound of a door closing and Director Parks came walking in, smiling.

  “Got you a bottle of water,” Bonnie said, pointing to a bottle on the coffee table in the middle of the chairs and couches.

  “Thanks,” Parks said. He pulled over another chair to sit beside Dawn and then took his water.

  “This place is really something, isn’t it?” Parks asked Sophie and Wade as they put the tablets on the coffee table.

  “It is,” Wade said. “But what is it?”

  “And that’s the story we’re about to tell you,” Dawn said.

  “Oh, good, I got here in time for the fun,” Parks said, settling back in his chair and smiling.

  Sophie looked at him and grew even more tense. What in the hell was going on?

  She reached over and took Wade’s hand in hers. Thank heavens Wade was with her.

  TWENTY

  October 18th, 2018

  Boise, Idaho

  WADE FELT CALMER suddenly when Sophie took his hand. The two of them really were stronger together than apart, and even after just two months of being together, that didn’t worry him at all. He just wanted to do everything in his power to make it last.

  “Feel free to ask questions,” Dawn said. “But I must warn you, what we are about to tell you will sound totally crazy.”

  “This isn’t crazy enough?” Wade asked, indicating the cavern around them.”

  The rest laughed.

  “No,” Dawn said, “this will be the tame part when this story is done.”

  “But what we ask,” Duster said, “is that you keep an open mind and then allow us to prove to you what we are saying. Can you do that?”

  “And after we have shown you our case,” Bonnie said, “you are both free to just be part of this, stay and research, or leave if you want. We just ask that you honor the do-not-disclose contract you signed.”

  Wade nodded and beside him Sophie did as well.

  “All right then,” Dawn said. “Here we go. First off, I have to tell you that only twenty-two people in the world know about this place and what we are about to tell you. With you two, the number is now twenty-four.”

  Wade was shocked at that low number. But he said nothing.

  Dawn pointed to Duster.

  “In the 1870s,” Duster said, “a distant relative of mine opened a gold mine that quickly worked out. But in the process over the years of looking for another vein of gold by digging deeper into a hill, he broke into a fantastic cavern of what looked like glowing rose-quartz crystals.”

  Duster took a sip of water, then went on.

  “My ancestor closed up the mine and passed it down through the family,” Duster said. “A year after Bonnie and I were married and were both working on our first doctorates in mathematics, my father took us to the mine and showed us the vast crystal room.”

  “We had a hunch what it was,” Bonnie said, “but it took us three more years and two more doctorate degrees in theoretical physics and mathematics to figure it out for sure.”

  Wade nodded. He had seen in his quick search that both of them had many higher degrees, none honorary.

  “In physics,” Duster said, “the accepted knowledge now is that energy and matter and time are all linked together in some fashion.”

  “And also a major theory is that with every decision,” Bonnie said, “or every turning point, no matter how large or small, two different timelines split off.”

  Wade was following fine so far. And from what he could tell, Sophie was as well.

  “What my ancestors found,” Duster said, “was what we call the nexus, where energy and time and matter take a physical form in their connection.”

  “Each crystal in those massive caverns is a timeline,” Bonnie said.

  “That would be impossible to contain in one cavern,” Sophie said. “The numbers of timelines would be infinite.”

  Wade was impressed. He had been sort of thinking the same thing, but wasn’t anywhere near with the idea of such a place as Sophie clearly was.

  “That’s correct,” Sophie,” Duster said, smiling and nodding. “The caverns are infinite and go off into other dimensions. What my ancestors broke into was simply a small area of timelines very close to this timeline.”

  “What happened next is that Duster and I invented a very simple device that allows us to step into the past of another timeline,” Bonnie said.

  “We are limited to the time of the mine opening,” Duster said. “And we can’t be in another timeline when we are alive in that timeline, so we are limited to not being too close to the present by our age.”

  Wade just stared at them. “You were right. This now has gotten completely crazy.”

  “Are you saying you can travel back in time?” Sophie asked.

  “Not really, no,” Duster said, shaking his head. “But we can travel back in time in another timeline. But we can’t go back in this timeline to change this past.”

  “But the other timelines are basically identical to this one,” Madison said.

  “Research,” Sophie said and Wade instantly understood where she was going.

  Dawn nodded. “It’s how we can get such incredible and accurate detail in our books.”

  “It’s why we founded this institute in the first place,” Director Parks said.

  Wade was just shaking his head. This was the wildest fairytale he could have ever imagined being told by seemingly smart people. The problem he had was that it all sounded logical and this cavern was most certainly real.

  So why the tall tale?

  For what purpose?

  Duster laughed and glanced at Bonnie and then Dawn. “Seems like it’s time for the show part.”

  “We asked you to trust us and that you would not believe us, but give us a chance to show you,” Bonnie said, her voice and look very serious. “Are you willing to do that?”

  Wade glanced at the worried look in Sophie’s dark eyes, then he turned back to Bonnie and Duster and nodded. “I’ll give you th
e rope because I want to know why you would tell us this story.”

  “I have a hunch you aren’t making up a thing,” Sophie said. “And that flat scares me even more. But I’m willing if Wade is.”

  “Great,” Duster said. “Let’s go.”

  “Madison and I will wait right here,” Dawn said. “We’ll get sandwiches and hot soup going.”

  Duster laughed. “Good idea.”

  Wade had no idea why that was a good idea, but with Sophie’s hand in his, they followed Bonnie and Duster and Director Parks toward a door beyond the kitchen area.

  He was sure he would never be doing this without Sophie at his side.

  He wasn’t sure if they should be doing it now.

  TWENTY-ONE

  October 18th, 2018

  Boise, Idaho

  THE DOOR OPENED into a stairwell that led downward. Sophie wasn’t sure she wanted to go deeper underground, but she followed Duster and Bonnie, holding onto Wade’s hand.

  Thank heavens he was with her.

  Finally, about two more floors down, another door opened into yet another huge cavern. As they went in, the lights came up and Sophie saw table after table full of historical supplies.

  There were racks and racks of clothing from different periods of history.

  And historical equipment like saddles and guns and saddlebags.

  Everything, just everything.

  Sophie had never seen or even imagined anything like this huge room. And right at that moment she knew, without a doubt, that what they had been told was accurate.

  And that scared her more than she ever wanted to admit.

  “Wow,” Wade said. “What a costume shop.”

  “Not costumes,” Duster said. “All authentic. Has to be.”

  Director Parks moved over and took a suit jacket from a rack and had Wade slip it on while Bonnie had Sophie put on a dress over her clothing and not button it.

  Sophie could tell the dress was from around 1890s or so. It was blue with a dark ribbon around the middle and a few sizes too big for her so that it fit over her clothing.