Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

The answer to one of her many questions resolved in her mind. She knew where the 1977 Wow! Signal had come from—the future. Her future. Her present. Jarrod sent the signal. Just moments ago. And he had sent the signal before. Each time, it contained a modification. A refinement.

But they were past that point. If further refinements had been sent, they had already been sent. They were beyond that point in time. She was now who she would always be, but she had no idea what that meant. Had no idea how that had changed things, or how many times this scene had played out, subtly changing with each transmission. How many different versions of herself had stood here before, watching the signal be sent? How many had failed to get this far? She’d barely survived the journey this time. Maybe this is the first time I made it...

If Sophia and Jarrod were any indication, she would be the only one who remembered who she had been before. I’m new, she thought, perhaps different enough from the others that the final change was not lost in a stream of new memories.

“Now what?” she asked, even more curious than before.

Jarrod’s smile broadened. “Now, we go on the offensive.” He set the computer down on the edge of the platform and opened an e-mail server.

I trust you.

Noah’s parting words echoed in her head. She made a promise. She asked him to trust her, and he had. “Who sent the message?”

Jarrod didn’t look up. “You still haven’t figured it out?”

“I understand that you—that we—just sent the Wow! Signal, but where did it come from? Who modified it?”

“Nobody modified it,” Jarrod said with a chuckle. “It is how it was meant to be. And we are where we were meant to be. It’s that simple.”

He doesn’t know. How could he? He doesn’t remember any other version of history than the current. There may have been a past where he knew the source, but the necessity to receive direct orders has been erased by the compulsion built into his DNA over unknown numbers of revisions.

Sophia took a step toward her, opening her arms as if offering an earnest embrace. “Jenna, it’s the Earth that gains, and all life on it, even humanity.”

Part of Jenna agreed wholeheartedly, but she knew those feelings had been programmed. They were powerful—stronger than before—but the knowledge of her past self buoyed her, gave her the desire to not be a slave to some mysterious coder of human DNA. Someone who had also figured out how to send a signal back in time.

Nurture is more powerful than nature. I raised you well.

For all his fatherly wisdom, Noah had never anticipated that she would be faced with a choice of this magnitude.

Jarrod finished composing his e-mail—a very short message—and was populating the address list. Jenna saw eleven recipients, eleven of her brothers and sisters. She wondered if there were still others out there like her, just awakening to the knowledge, or some who had perhaps refused to embrace the apocalyptic prophecy of their teacher—their creator.

She wondered how many had been wiped out by the Agency’s purge.

Maybe it is better to simply wipe the slate clean.

But she had made a promise.

“If everything you say is true,” she persisted. “Why did we have to send this message back to space? It doesn’t make sense.”

While she now had some of the answers—though she still couldn’t conceive why the signal was being shot into space—she was hoping the two of them might question their actions. Might open their eyes to the truth.

Sophia reached out for her arm, gently, shaking her head like a disappointed parent. “Jenna—”

Their beliefs were unshakable. Without knowledge of their true pasts, they could never be convinced to fight the desires being shouted at them by their very DNA.

Without waiting for an answer, Jenna leaped forward and seized the computer from Jarrod’s hand before he could hit ‘Send.’





60



6:07 p.m.



The move caught Jarrod off guard. Jenna snapped the screen down, and with a hard pull, she yanked it free of the connection to the receiver network. Then, she spun on her heel and bolted for the door.