Ursula hesitates but takes her seat. It’s unclear if it’s the radiation readings troubling her or the rigid, marauding fury in her husband’s eyes as she sits next to him. Lionel faces the assembled observers and offers a tight smile.
“Thank you for attending what I hope will be an illuminating display,” Lionel says. “I believe Mr. Francoeur has explained the essential nature of my work to you all and you’ve already been patient watching me fiddle with the equipment, so I’ll just say that if, and I realize it’s a substantial if, but if my theory holds and the constant rotation of the planet can be harnessed to produce an efficient and robust energy source, it could be of great value to our technical endeavors. Of course, I don’t expect much of today’s experiment. But it should at least indicate that there’s something to my theories worthy of further pursuit.”
There is no record of what Goettreider said before switching on the prototype. He wrote no notes, spoke off the cuff. The gist of it was conveyed by the various witnesses in the subsequent weeks, before they all died, but they were scientists and none paid his words much mind before the device was turned on and stunned them all with what it unleashed. In the decades that followed, thousands of writers have taken a crack at imagining this speech, imbuing it with pomp and prophecy, politics and philosophy. Scholars have dissected its possibilities. Poets have made it vast and uncanny.
And I just heard it, his actual statement, cautious and modest with an undercurrent of self-regard. It’s always been a subject of intense argument whether or not Goettreider suspected what he was about to achieve—but as I stand here, hearing his words, seeing the way he carries himself, he clearly had lofty ambitions but grounded expectations. He looks like a guy mostly hoping to avoid public humiliation.
Ursula gives Lionel a sweet nod of encouragement and he stands up straighter. His eyes survey the console to ensure everything is as it should be. He takes a deep breath, playfully cocks an eyebrow at the observers, and pulls up the activation lever to turn on the Goettreider Engine.
53
I’m still tucked in the nook behind the observers, so I have about thirty seconds before the Engine begins its operation cycle to reposition myself if I want to see the faces of the assembled witnesses and catch their celebrated reactions.
There’s a tickle in the back of my mind that tells me I’m safe where I am, even if I don’t have the best view of the experiment and its observers, the best way to ensure I have no material interaction with the unfolding events is to stay put. Unfortunately, reason is no match for vanity and wonder.
As the device gears up and the absorption coils start to crackle, I slip out of the nook and position myself on the other side of the room from where Lionel stands with his hand still on the activation lever, so I have a clear view of the observers. Everyone has a similar expression, vaguely interested, vaguely unimpressed. Except Ursula, her face knit with apprehension, jaw muscles flexing as she grinds her teeth.
The Engine gets up to speed and emits a rumble that makes my internal organs wobble gelatinously. Loose objects like the coffee mug I bumped jiggle in place. A few observers flash nervous half smiles, but everyone’s definitely paying attention now. Lionel stares at his invention, his hand on the lever, ready to switch it off if things take a wrong turn, but fascinated by what might happen next.
What happens next is a glittering, radiant plume leaps from the absorption coils and pitches across the lab, enveloping the observers in a silvery whorl of light.
A few people scream. A few raise their hands to protect themselves. The rest just stare in mute shock. Ursula laughs, bright, delighted. The plume doesn’t hurt them, although everyone’s hair rises in the air like the strands have lost their tether to gravity.
Another glittering energy plume spirals harmlessly through the room.
And that’s when I see the sixteen faces. They’re not exactly as advertised. Skeptical simply doesn’t understand what he’s seeing, Awed is probably an exaggeration, but his eyes do go pretty wide, Distracted reaches out to touch the energy plume while Amused recoils from it, Angry is just spooked by the light show, Thoughtful realizes she’s witnessing something unprecedented, so does Frightened but he doesn’t like what it suggests, Detached is more like taken aback, Concerned is more like curious, Excited would be overstating it, Nonchalant would be understating it, it’s hard to tell Harried from Weary, Wise is more like impressed, and, while Jealous is entirely accurate, Cheeky is nowhere to be seen—that’s Pride.
Another bright silver plume leaps from the Engine, and this one hurtles right at me. It’s mesmerizing. Up close, I can see that within the energy whorl—the mollusk lick curling in on itself that’s come to symbolize everything Goettreider’s genius gave us—the glittering effect is because the larger whorl is made up of countless smaller whorls, which are in turn comprised of tinier and tinier whorls, an infinity of them spiraling into themselves beyond the subatomic, each a spinning thread of pure power unlocking a door to a future the assembled witnesses have seen only in the cheap stock pages of the science-fiction pulps they read, three-quarters embarrassed and one-quarter thrilled, wondering what it might take to make their vivid dreams a waking life. Like the virtual environment projector that ushered me to consciousness every morning, in this moment they were all launched into a floating limbo between the half-awake past and the half-asleep future. They didn’t know it yet, but the Goettreider Engine was the means by which their most outrageous dreams would be mapped onto the world.
“Jesus Christ!” Lionel says.
Everyone looks at him. I look at him. And I realize he’s looking right at me.
He can see me.
Because that magnificent glittering plume I was marveling over disrupted the invisibility field that cloaked me from view, rendering me translucent but visible—and I’d rejoice at yet another colossal error in my father’s grand plan if I wasn’t too busy having a panic attack. Lionel Goettreider stands rigid and pale, staring at the ghost gaping at him from across his lab.
It turns out I’m the Seventeenth Witness—Idiotic.
54
I fumble with the emergency reset toggle on my wrist panel. It wipes me invisible again before the Sixteen Witnesses fling their heads in my direction.
“Did you see that?” Lionel says. “Did anyone see that?”
“See what?” Ursula says. “Lionel, what?”
“So he’s Lionel now?” says Jerome.
Another plume hurtles out of the Engine. No one knows where to look. The most important experiment in human history is happening in front of them and they’re all staring at the empty space where I’m standing, about to engage the emergency boomerang protocol and get the hell out of the past.