SWNOVELS Chapter AIA - Math makes everything easier
Part 2 Ancient I
Daisy was sitting in the computer room in the underground bunker between Ezra and Davin’s homes. She was looking at the anomaly again. It had been seven months and eleven days since the battles at Neimad Global’s Cretaceous Research and Energy Research facilities, seven months and eleven days since Damien Neimad’s death. His body was dead, burned by the energy of the exploding void portal. It literally turned to dust; he would never revive again… ever. Her family was avenged. She had friends now and was no longer alone, but she felt empty. Thanksgiving was here and Christmas was coming. She tried not to let the tears come as she thought about all the Christmas presents she would never buy her twin boys, Benny and Danny.
She stretched her arm, the place where Mattilda Azoni had shot her had healed well, but it still got stiff. Daisy closed her eyes, she was tired, she had barely slept in 2 days and had consumed every last bit of coffee in both homes. Ezra and Fianna would be back from the mainland tonight or tomorrow afternoon. She hoped they had a good holiday with Cierra, and Meara. Davin had gone home to visit with his parents and sisters.
They had invited her, but she refused, saying they didn’t really want a grieving widow and mother with them dragging their holiday spirit down. That was partly true, but really it was mostly because she wanted to work with the time machine. She had to finish as much as she could and put the time machine back in the vault before Davin discovered she had it out. They didn’t like the idea of her ‘playing’ with it, so Davin, Ezra, and Taylor kept her busy with side projects, and Karstien always welcomed her help at the habitats. She was researching Karstien’s people, their true identity, and what made them special, but she only knew of five of them, all in the distant past, except Karstien and he was the last one alive now that Damien had been reduced to dust.
Daisy had finally figured out a way to set anchor points for the time machine by decoding the script on the top. The ancient dialect was as much language as equation. Every image carved into the golden surface was an application waiting to be realized and used. The mathematics required were intense but exhilarating. She could visit anywhere and ‘any-when’ now that she had the jump plates working. She continued tracking the energy signatures of the time machine, it left its fingerprint when-ever it went, echoes in time like ripples in a pond. There was also the exponential readings spike 10,000 years ago to study. It gave the illusion of lasting millions of years, but like all things quantum, it didn’t behave normally, and her only theory was that for some reason, her world became trapped in a pocket of ‘strange time’. Looking at the time stream was like looking at the distant universe reflected in a funhouse mirror; beautifully curious and absolutely confounding!
Still, her mind came back to the abnormal energy reading from the void portal, another anomaly. It showed up the night Damien died, that time and only one other time far in the past. She just wasn’t sure what it was or what it meant. It was a resonance similar to the dark matter in the void portal she had discovered in her earliest energy research with Dr. Weizmann; similar to the energy in the storm that had destroyed her town; similar to the energy Damien Neimad was after. Its behavior was an anomaly, but it behaved almost like it had consciousness, like it was alive. That dark energy signal bothered her more than any puzzle she had ever studied, and she didn’t understand why.
The computer chimed, she looked at the security feeds. Karstien was leaving his house, he turned his truck toward Davin and Ezra’s compound, and not the Habitats. She calculated the time it would take him to get there, she had 12 minutes to put everything away.
Karstien had a surprise for Daisy. Winter on the island was wet and cool, but today the sun was going to be shining and it promised to be a beautiful day in Grand Bay City. He entered Ezra and Fianna’s house quietly, he realized Daisy must still be upstairs asleep. She had confessed to hating the winter holidays since her twins had died. Upstairs, she was buried in a bundle of covers in her room, the soft music playing hid the sound of his footsteps.
“Get up, sleepy head!” He enthusiastically bounced on her bed, “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Go away, it is too early!” she groaned, pulling the covers over her head. She looked like she had a rough night.
“Nope, Ezra and Fianna are picking us at the ferry, we’re going to have fun today,” Karstien insisted. “You have moped and been alone since Monday.”
“Only if there’s coffee involved,” she grumbled, peeking out at him.
“Coffee and warm cookies and ice skating,” he grinned, sitting on the foot of her bed.
“Ice skating?” she looked surprised. “How? And since when do you ice skate?”
“Oh, there’s a lot of things I can do that you know nothing about, and they opened the hockey rink to the public for the holiday,” he announced, “Now get up and get dressed, sleepy head! I’ll make you a cup of coffee for the road.” And he bounced up.
“You can’t, Davin and Ezra both ran out of coffee and the island store isn’t open,” she complained, then whined, “Do I have to go ice skating? It’s too cold.”
“YES! I promise I’ll get you a coffee, and I’ll teach you to skate too. Just get up! And pack an overnight bag. Hurry! We’ll miss the ferry,” he prodded excitedly, then left and closed the door behind him.
Daisy smirked as she pulled on layers of clothes. Karstien only thought there were things she didn’t know about him, she was going to watch him his whole life using the time machine, she just needed to get started.
‘He is the one who doesn’t know me,’ she thought smugly. She had been skating since she was 4, but she’d let him teach her if it made him happy. He was her best friend after all.
An hour later, they were almost to the Grand Bay City ferry terminal. Across the water, they could see the abandoned Neimad Global Energy Research facility. During the battle with Damien, Daisy and Davin had Jon fill the upper levels of the snowflake shaped building with hydrogen gas from an experimental power plant, they hadn’t known it produced methane too. When the gas blew up it, shattered the dome and partially collapsed the building. It was being torn down. Karstien noticed Daisy was staring at it like she wanted to go back there.
Karstien watched her processing, “What is it, Daisy?” he asked cautiously.
Daisy answered quietly, “I just feel like I missed something...”
Suddenly, he was certain she was hiding something, and he eyed her questioningly. Her eyes were completely unfocused as she stared at the ruined building. Her normally twitching body perfectly still and quiet for a moment.
“Something important...”she repeated and trailed off distractedly. She caught herself, shook her head as she grinned at him and demanded happily, “Never mind. You promised me coffee and cookies!”
“And you shall have them.” Karstien laughed, but he began to worry too. ‘Daisy’s fixated on more than my past,’ he realized, ‘But what, I wonder.’
Meara and Fianna waved from the ferry terminal, shouting holiday greetings over Davin’s laughter. Nearby Ezra, wearing a baby carrier, and Cierra were holding trays of coffees. They greeted each other with hugs and happiness like a real family. Davin was there and Daisy tried to hide her surprise. She was so glad she had run data he had not seen yet about increasing the yield of the dodo farms.
“So, I saw my basement system has been busy. You are extrapolating some interesting genetic algorithms for increasing the viability of our Genosaurs...” Davin looked excited by what Daisy had the supercomputer feeding his surveillance program so she could hide what she was really doing.
“Find something interesting?” Ezra asked.
“Oh yes, by reprogramming the recombinant RNA...” Daisy started but Cierra interrupted her.
“NO WORK!” Cierra gave them all a stern glare, “Today and tomorrow, we are having a relaxing holiday without talking about those reptiles.”
“Technically they are warm blooded and not reptiles, they... oh look, here’s the skating place...” Daisy ended as Cierra gave her the glare of death as Ezra called it.
Meara snickered, and whispered loudly to Daisy, “Ceecee is just peeved cause Davin gave her raptor skin boots and a matching bag for her birthday. She hates things with scales or feathers.”
Davin blushed bright red, mumbling, “I didn’t know.”
Inside, they stuffed Daisy and Karstien’s overnight bags into a locker and rented skates. Ezra and Kars flew around the ice with Meara chasing them as they raced. Fianna glided gracefully, turning and almost dancing as Davin carefully followed the edge with an unsure expression. Cierra prefered to sit and hold her new nephew. Daisy just stood, observing everyone from the edge the ice. Kars grabbed her hand as he went by and pulled her with him.
“Don’t worry you won’t fall,” he called out, skating backwards and pulling her along as Meara and Ezra skated up.
“I know I won’t fall; I can do the math.” Daisy assured him.
“What ’cha mean the math? We’re skating,” Ezra looked at her like she was crazy.
Daisy let go of Karstien’s hands, turned her body and jumped, her momentum and weight allowed for a double toe-loop followed by a single. Then she drifted toward the center of the ice, doing ever more complicated jumps and combinations. People moved away clearing the center for the tiny woman in purple yoga pants and hoodie to skate. She stopped when she realized she was almost alone on the rink, panting and flushed.
“That was awesome!” Meara tackled her to the ice, laughing and praising her. Many people were clapping.
“Show-off,” Ezra snarled but Daisy knew he was more shocked than angry.
“What? It’s just math; velocity, momentum, acceleration, and rotation,” Daisy said too innocently, winking at Karstien as he pulled her and a snickering Meara back to their feet.
Karstien chuckled, “Just math, huh?”
”Girrrl, you’re crazy... just math, jeez, whatever!” Ezra snarked in a dramatic drama queen imitation but he was grinning.
Daisy shrugged dramatically, Meara giggled again, and Kars just shook his head. His human friends were so weird, despite their constant teasing about him being the immortal one.
After dinner at the Garrett’s home, Meara was asking Daisy about the math of skating, so she was writing out the calculations for each jump on the whiteboard Meara used to keep her school and tournament schedule on. Davin shook his head as he went back downstairs. In the family room, Ezra, Kars, and Cierra were playing Fortnight together.
Fianna was taking a pan of brownies out of the oven. “Hey,” she smiled at him just the way Milady used to, and he buried the discomfort he felt. “Are you hungry?”
Davin laughed, “Omigawd no, if I eat anything else today, I’ll explode… I can’t believe how much Meara and Daisy can eat!”
Fianna giggled, “I know. I have never seen two people who are so tiny eat so much. I may have to cook double at Christmas.” Suddenly she almost doubled over, “Ooofff.”
Davin rushed to her side, “Fianna?”
Her and Ezra’s son was kicking in his kangaroo carrier. “Your godson is going to be a soccer player.” She grinned at him, "I am so happy he is out of my belly now."
Looking into her eyes, he made himself forget about Milady and all the what-ifs and smile back. “Ezra has restless leg syndrome, camping with him is a nightmare if you have to share a tent, but then you know all about sleeping with him.”
As she giggled more, he moved away to the coffee maker and poured a cup. “I am so glad you married Ezra, you’re so good for him.”
“You’re good for Cierra,” Fianna pointed out. “She was never truly serious about school or our duties or anything until you asked her out. I… I am sorry about her miscarriage.”
Davin nodded, “We are too, but we are glad that you and Ezra.”
“And when she graduates, you’ll still get married?” Fianna asked, she chewed her lip.
“I love her. She… I hope she loves me.” Davin shrugged.
As Fianna put the brownies on a plate, she reassured him, “Oh, she does. She’s just afraid. Our parents had such a bad marriage before Dad's death. She just needs to see marriage can be wonderful. I think being around your parents while she finishes her degree will be good for her and for you.”
Fianna handed him a tray with brownies and two mugs of cocoa, “You serve the math geeks upstairs and I’ll feed the gamer monsters.” She picked up a second tray as Davin chuckled, climbing the stairs with his, “Yes, my lady.”
He was halfway up the stairs before he realized what he said and silently cursed himself. Milady was dead and though Fianna was her doppelganger, Davin reminded himself he didn't believe in reincarnation. He loved Cierra but hated that Cierra was leaving as soon as the winter holidays were over. The opportunity to do her clinicals at the University of New Island City was too good to pass on. She would be splitting her time between her mother’s apartment and his parents’ house and he prayed that Fianna was right, that seeing how happy his parents were after nearly thirty years would change the middle Mazoni's view of marriage.