Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow (55 page)

“What?”

“Lylit now is safe on Earth. The goddess culture is more than your T-shirt slogan. Lylit is again alive in the hearts of women who long for the truth. More will soon join them.”

“Women such as you, my sister,” Lylit says. Her eyes
cast sisterly pride.

“No! You have to give us
what I asked. For all the hell you brought.”

Lian in that moment
grows taller, wings rise up, but not those of a scaly lizard. His body flows into a gilded masculine form, bronze-feathered wings long and graceful rise high from his broad back. The godlike countenance gleams as bronze, nine feet from the ground. Tharcia has to tilt her head back to look him in the eye.

“Alright,” Lian says, in a voice
burnished deep as his skin. “What is the single thing you most desire, out of all we discussed?”

“One?” His
face is so bright Tharcia finds it hard to look straight at him.

“Only one.”

Her brain works furiously. He is calling it. No more debate. Decide! Which of her desires would be the greatest compensation to all those who have suffered?

“What is your choice, Tharcia? We are out of time.”

“You promise to make it true without quibbling or fine print?” She knows she’ll never be granted her first wish, the one that launched this whole sorry spectacle.

“I promise. Out with it.”

“For the women, Lian. Make women and men see one another as equals, everywhere on Earth. Do it so the world will live as one. Do it so girls don’t get abused anymore. Let all women respect themselves. That is what I want.”

“That’s fine
,” Lian says. “You have my word. Now you need to get out of here. The instant we leave, there will be fireworks. You can’t stay.”

She turns to Lylit for o
ne last hug, and receives a surprise. Lylit is transformed. She’s as tall as Lian, her face and body gleam burnished platinum. Silver-feathered angel wings gracefully extend, her eyes shine brilliant emerald. She is too bright to look at directly. Lylit bends down, a hand on Tharcia’s shoulder. Warm lips press hers softly. Tharcia’s eyes fall closed, she could sink forever into that kiss. A whisper in her ear. “You don’t need Lian to achieve the things you asked.”

The
gleaming body straightens, Lylit’s glorious face smiles down on Tharcia from her full height. “Your mom is closer than you can imagine.”

“My mom?”

“And Tharcia, you are not here because of me. I am here because of you.”

Lian and Lylit
smile for each other. Holding hands, the radiant beings shine brighter until Tharcia must avert her face. When she lands with the slightest bump on her porch among quiet redwoods, her hands cover her eyes.

Of course, at the Pentagon,
there is unfinished business in the courtyard. Unfinished kinetic and chemical energy business. Lian’s protective field collapses. The field that protected him, Tharcia, Lillian and Lylit during their courtyard visits was no portal, no passive weapon. It was none of the things scientists and physicists guessed it must be. It was merely a temporal distortion ten minutes into the past. Anything that touches it simply stops. The energy required to send an object back in time is, after all, exceedingly high.

Now released from the field
, several hundred rooftop sniper rounds plunge ahead and dig into the scarred earth, ricochet from broken concrete walks, off the bulletproof glass to whine away high over deserted parking lots. Rocket-propelled grenades regain their momentum, their motors resume hot chemical reactions and continue interrupted trajectories. These projectiles are capable of breaking glass and do so, blowing out a number of offices on A-Ring, Christopher Strand’s among them. The mathematician is in no position to miss it.

The
massive bomb launched at Lian’s head from a strike fighter commanded by the stray military faction explodes six hundred feet in the air. The concussion smashes the Pentagon’s rooftops and breaks all remaining windows.

Last but not least are the six bursts from the YAL-1 airborne laser cannon. Their energy, too,
was bound in the envelope of distorted time. Now, fiery beams from all directions focus on the splinters of the gazebo, ignite everything they touch to incandescence. The heatshock flings white-hot wreckage and particles of earth into the shattered offices, consumes the building from the heart outwards. The fire burns for quite some time. No one is prepared to save it.

The day rises cold among tall redwoods. Early sunlight paints long shadows over bare earth. Tharcia grips the porch rail for support as her world spins into focus. Sees blackened scraps of her mother’s clothing stamped into dirt. Remembers in wonder the white horse that stood there. Dream? No. Too mystical for dream.

Remembers the fall of rose petals, taste on her tongue. The
touch of Clay’s body making her scream. Tharcia’s heart smiles, no remorse. He doesn’t know, he cannot yet. And no girl whose father is an angel will hold truth like that from a beloved friend. Across the clearing, metallic sounds from open shop doors.

Clay looks up when
Tharcia strides in strong, polished boots and leather jacket. He lets out a long breath.

“How’d it go?”

Fierce smile, she walks right up, kisses him hard.

“Lylit? Lian?”

Head against his chest, safe in his arms. “Gonzo. Miss ‘em like fire.”

She draws back
to see into his face, love is there, the shadow of guilt. “No, Clay. It’s not like we thought. We were mistaken. We are okay.”

His face
dawns hope. “What are you saying?”

“
My chimera. First it was Porterfield, then it was another person my mom knew briefly. I’ll tell ya later.”

“Tharcia! Are you telling me that we…”

She kisses him sweetly. “Clay, we can be however we want.”

He
studies her eyes, mind rocked with questions. “Ask me better.”

She looks at him
steady. Knows it’s what both of them desire. “Clay, if you want to be with me, then I do.”

Clay
has the face of someone whose dearest wish has come true, in a way never imagined. He can do no more than shake his head slow. “Is anything left of the world out there? It’s so quiet this morning.”

Tharcia
nods. “Most of it. Lylit showed me on the way. We’ll get it back. Tell ya later.” She yawns big.

“Fix you some eggs
?”

“K. These
jeans are cutting me in half.”

“You won
, you’re here. Has it dawned on you yet?”

“I lost
, I won, doesn’t make any diff. But I got us something good.” She laughs. “For everyone.”

Clay
studies the soft face of this very peculiar woman. He will understand her, but perhaps not today. “Let’s go in then.”

In Tharcia’s mind one day soon will awaken the barest unformed thought, that her period is late. She will verbalize it to herself, and find a way to check. It will dawn on her what
Lylit meant, that her mom is closer than she imagines. She will fling herself into Clay’s arms. Lost in one another’s eyes they’ll say a single word.
Yes.

In
the clearing, at a place where fine black ash tints forest earth, many footprints lie in the dust. An intricate spiral of small white stones, set in the path a horse once walked. A labyrinth that crosses time to the opening of the womb.

“Did you do that?
The stones?”

“Not me.”

The woodstove is roaring and the house is warm. In the kitchen with Clay, finishing her coffee, Tharcia wears her velvet robe. They don’t talk much, don’t need to. She is watching his face when she notices movement outside. Stands straight, grips his arm.

“Clay.”

He follows her look. In sunlight near Tharcia’s dusty yellow car are five women, all ages. From a respectful distance, they gaze toward the house. Tharcia looks at Clay, open-mouthed. All five wear the lavender T-shirt with the words
Goddess Culture
across the front.

Squeezes
his hand tight, stands in a dream. As they watch, three women approach up the dirt driveway. Two carry bunches of flowers. Like the others, they wear the printed lavender shirt.

From
up the hill, two women and three small girls descend among trees. They gather with the others, talking quietly and glancing toward the house. Two of the girls walk a convoluted path in the clearing, with conscious attention follow the pebble-edged labyrinth scuffed in dirt by a horse’s hooves. They stand quiet in the center, holding hands.

Clay
whispers at her shoulder. “Talk to them babe, they’ve waited for you.”

S
he swings the door wide. The women turn with radiant faces. One is the psychic Althea, who smiles and holds out the front of her shirt. With them is the FBI agent, Stephanie Willits. Some are older, hair of natural silver. Tharcia turns.

“Clay, what do I
say?
”

“Easy.
Tell them who you are.”

She looks at him for the sweep of long seconds. Gets a smile
going.

“Yeah,” she says. “What if I just tell
them the truth? Every bit of it.”

Tharcia in her
red robe walks into sunlight where the women stand, eager in waking consciousness to know again the words of Lylit.

Imagine.

I’ll be happy if you post a review on Amazon, say what the book meant to you. This link will take you take you directly to the
Next History
book page:
http://amzn.com/B00BLT0AZO
.

Reviews are what independent author-publishers depend on. Thank you.

Thank you for reading
Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow
. I was absolutely thrilled to find myself writing it. Many of the ideas came out of nowhere, I felt that I had a story worth telling. It brings up the most important question humans ever face: Who am I and how do I matter to the universe? The answer belongs to you.

Special thanks are due to forever friend Jack Reed and my own dear wife Sherri Zysk, who read through many drafts from the beginning, provided comment and support as I worked out the story.
I owe a great debt to friends and professionals who provided comment on later drafts. Thanks in particular to Karuna Chapman and Frank Gallant, you helped make this story what it came to be.

Cover credits: With
appreciation for the fine original artwork of Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell for the female figure, and SeaPics.com for the blue whale image, both licensed for use on this cover. Thanks also to NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope for public domain use of “Light echoes from red supergiant V838 in the constellation Monoceritos” (The Unicorn). Cover design: Lee Baldwin.

Copyright © 2013 Lee Baldwin

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9854777-3-8

___

Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced to a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Edition 1, March 1, 2013.

I am a novelist in Santa Cruz, California. I have waited 25 years to be able to say that, through a half-dozen careers including my own creative copywriting agency in Vancouver (Canada) and Hawaii, being a human interface designer in Silicon Valley, a glass artist and landscape painter. It was worth it.

My characters often have a quirky edge, because I see human foibles as the launch points of dramatic conflict. That and
a musical ear helps me shape dialog and narrative into rhythms of dramatic reveal, turning points, and cadences.

Escape fiction generally satisfies the reader's hunger for vicarious experiences. You know, the cool stuff. Such as glamorous adventure, epic situations, sex and romance, and sometimes overcoming a
n obstacle. I get fiendish pleasure whenever I spice these situations with wry humor.

Some of my work,
Next History
in particular, I wrote so that people would gain hope, in a way, or at least consider certain ideas in new light. When someone gains a fresh viewpoint from my writing, it fulfills my purpose.

For more background on Next History including a bibliography, please see
http://baldwin-books.com
.

Thanks again.