Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy Page 6

  Ezra seems to show sympathy as he speaks on. “Caleb and Balthazar had everything they could possibly need. Sebastian had filled his open wound of loss for his beloved wife with his obsession, physics and discovery. It left his boys always at arm’s length though. The love they desired from their father never available. The continued and growing obsession of Sebastian’s began to spawn grander concepts and theories. He even had a compound built detached from the main house. It was built with untraditional materials for the time. Steel-studded walls, heavy stone, bulletproof doors and shatterproof windows. It was a fortress. Those that built it had to clear his specific screening. No one he didn’t know touched the construction of this structure that’s how important it was to him. Sebastian was careful with everything surrounding his work in the compound. He was developing experiment after experiment—engineering, modifying, formulating theory upon theory. Finally, it happened. He discovered a way to manipulate negative mass into a singular object, making the formulation of a traverse wormhole a sustainable reality. A device able to pierce our world.

  I stop Ezra. “Wait a minute. When was this, the 1960’s or something?”

  Ezra replies, “Actually, the breakthrough was 1965. The world of quantum physics was still a newborn, but Sebastian was already years ahead of all of the theorists.”

  I sit there silently, letting it sink in that this guy was my relative.

  “Jesca, it’s mind-boggling, I know.”

  Absently, I respond. “Yeah, no shit. So, Sebastian kept all of this a big secret. He didn’t want to spread his theories. Why not spread his discovery to the public? He could’ve advanced the research of space by decades!”

  Ezra shakes his head. “But at what cost? For the greater good of humankind or to explore beyond the edge of our observable universe? To find new life or alien lives? To discover a world, multiple worlds, infinite and parallel universes? Where do you think the line should be drawn Jesca?”

  “What line?”

  “The line for playing God?”

  Play God. Is that where this is going? Was this Onoch guy, my relative, trying to play God?

  “So what happened after his discovery? You said that he had an object that harnessed negative energy waves to hold open the wormhole.”

  Ezra rocks back in his chair. “His experimentation was isolated to himself as he trusted no one with what he was discovering. He quickly found that the key to conductivity of electromagnetism was the element that courses through our veins, copper. He found the link to create electromagnetic radiation with the combination of copper in and out of his body through a mechanism, a conduit.”

  “A conduit?”

  Ezra nods, “A device that would be capable of possessing electromagnetic propulsion faster than the speed of light to produce antigravity. Once that was achieved, the device and the human conductor would both absorb the antigravity in unison, producing the opening of a wormhole.”

  “What was the device?”

  “This object had to be very portable, which is what took the most time. The exterior had to be shatterproof. Indestructible. The interior designs complexity reflected its purpose. The device was named Copula for the ability to pair, or couple, with the human body. The workings inside resembled that of a clock; a copper disc shaped in a concave nature with a stabilized motor smaller than that of a black bean. Atop that is a spinning gear axis with two arms or rods with paddle-like discs the size of a lentil off shooting the rods. The motion of the arms of the device are propelled by electric current from an external force, the human host. Once propulsion begins, the arms form a figure-eight motion. This energy it produces synthesizes with the energy within the host and together both become pure antigravity. The catch—synthesis can only happen with the body when it has an external charge. It needs a jump start.”

  “A jump start?”

  I’m thinking cables to battery used on a car, which is disturbing on many levels.

  Ezra blows out his upper lip. “An electric shock.”

  “Are you serious? That’s insane!”

  He splays his hands out in a motion for me to calm down. “A small contained surge of electric current to set the Copula into motion.”

  “A fucking electrical surge!”

  Ezra sighs and nods, knowing how my mind is putting this together. “It sounds worse than it is, believe me. But it isn’t anything that you haven’t already done.”

  Me? When have I released electric current?

  Reading my thoughts again, Ezra says, “Your nightmares.”

  I think back on my latest nightmare and the voice that led me through it using my energy. “The energy inside of me, you mean.”

  He nods. “The humming vibration you keep hearing. That’s the energy building inside of you, like a defense mechanism.”

  The voice! “Jesus, it was you in my dream guiding me!” I rise up grabbing my bag. “First you talk to me during my waking hours, now in my nightmares?”

  I start to walk toward the door when Ezra yells at me. “Jesca, we aren’t done yet!”

  I don’t stop until his holler commands me, “Jesca, wait damn it!”

  I turn to him, ready to give him a piece of my mind, when he beats me to the punch “You don’t know what’s out there. On this earth, there are those that pursue without a care for humanity. There are also those that have inherited the purpose of guarding it. Me, your parents and you have inherited the Earth! We are the guards!”

  “Are you saying that I’m one of these magical guardians?”

  “There’s no magic about it!”

  “Look, I have enough crazy going on in my head. I don’t need you adding to my full plate. I’ve got to get out of here.”

  CHAPTER 6: ANSWERS

  Jesca

  I get the hell out of the department building as quick as I can and start the walk back to my apartment even quicker while replaying the story Ezra just told me. I can’t let it cloud my judgment. I did the right thing walking out of there. I have too much to deal with to learn about some old fuddy-duddy relative that dabbled in physics. For all I know Ezra is off his rocker as much as I am with that bullshit story he gave me about my wormhole-traveling ancestor.

  I’m almost home when the humming begins in my right ear. Shit! The heaviness of that familiar tracking presence starts to close in. Suddenly, the presence is in front of me, stopping my progress. The humming is a strong vibration all through me and I think of what Ezra said—it’s a defense mechanism. I concentrate on seeing the waves of energy like I did in my dream. All of a sudden, the waves appear like rising heat from sun burnt concrete in the middle of summer. The lamplight above me is dimming and brightening in rhythm with the vibration within me. I will myself to push the waves further out from my body toward the invisible tracker. Instantly I feel the heaviness it’s using to hold me captive lighten then release. I still feel its presence, just farther away now, waiting at a distance. Well shit, my life force is as real in waking hours as it is in my sleep. It’s my protection, just like Ezra said.

  I move my hand out slowly toward the dark, heavy entity just as I had in my nightmare. Low and behold, the darkness shifts away from my radiating waves of energy. The vibration continues to pulse energy farther and farther out from my body with every beat of my heart just as it did in my dream. I take my arms into my chest, and then thrust my hands outward toward the dark force. A wave of pure, bright, white energy rolls from my body into the darkness, striking at the invisible predator stalking me. My energy waves don’t keep it away for long. It rebounds and surrounds me, suffocating the energy I’m emitting. My thoughts transform from fear, to anger, then determination to escape this wicked force bearing down on me.

  I send one more surge of pure energy into the darkness, attempting to distract the tracking bastard and get away. It works! I turn and run as hard as I can, the speed matching the supernat
ural stride I had in the woods the other day.

  Within seconds, I’m behind a dead-bolted door; my pulse is soaring as high as the adrenaline pumping through me as I stare at the door, shifting my eyes between it and the window. I back myself into my small kitchen, the one spot from where I can keep my eyes on both the front door and the window. Minutes pass. Then a half hour. I test the waters and close my eyes to focus on feeling for the dark entities stalking me, but I sense nothing. Still, I sit and wait. They could be waiting to strike. Another half hour passes and I’m sitting on the sofa, legs crossed, and eyes shut listening, feeling, waiting.

  The warmth on the side of my face is what wakes me with a start, my eyes wide open scanning the apartment. The first light of early morning is peeking through the window blinds as I take my cell phone out of my pocket and dial.

  “Jes.”

  Just by the way she says my name, I know that my conversation with Ezra has fallen on her ears.

  “Mom, I’m on my way over. We need to talk.” I don’t wait for her response as I hang up, take a quick shower, dress, and start the drive over to their house.

  I don’t knock when I get there. I let myself in and follow the voices to the living room. As I walk through the doorway, the first pair of eyes I see are Ezra’s. Ignoring my parents’ welcome, I jump right in. “Coming to my parents’ house to tattle on me? Tell them that I’m loony?”

  “Jesca, stop it!” My dad demands.

  Mom rises from her seat. “That isn’t why he’s here Jes,”

  Ezra tries to calm her. “It’s all right. Her frustration is understandable.”

  His manipulating the conversation to make him out to be the good guy pisses me off.

  “Yes, I’m frustrated! Frustrated that you’ve been stalking me and now you’re involving my parents!”

  My mom loses her temper as her voice flares up to match mine. “He isn’t stalking you or us Jes.”

  “We know him Jesca!” Dad adds.

  Mom adds more calmly now. “Everything he tried to tell you last night is true.”

  Ezra confesses, “She left before I could tell her everything.”

  Dad nods and looks at me, his arms crossed. “You need to hear it all, Jes.”

  “Why?”

  With my words getting hung up in my tightening throat, I clear it and try again. “Why tell me now?”

  “The more you know, the safer you’ll be,” Dad says.

  I stare at each of them, now knowing they’ve all had a part in this. “Ezra says you’re guardians, like him and me.”

  I shake my head, it sounds foreign in my head and on my lips as I say the word. “What the hell is a guardian?”

  I look from mom to dad, but their only response is to turn to Ezra, the last thing I wanted.

  I look over at him sitting on the sofa, his hands folded and his elbows resting on his knees. “I’ll tell you, but first, you need to know how this all began.”

  Mom comes to my side and takes my hand carefully, her eyes holding mine. “Please let him tell you everything Jes.”

  I join my mother on the love seat, while dad takes the seat next to Ezra. He doesn’t waste any time continuing where he left off last night. “We all have internal energy.”

  He looks up at me, “Some more than others. But in the beginning with Sebastian, he didn’t know how to harness it, much like you. Sebastian had to learn how to will his body to release this energy in order to keep the wormhole he created from pinching closed. He realized that he was the variable that piercing the fold in space depended on. It took month’s of metaphysical and spiritual practice. At that time, metaphysics was a practice in Eastern philosophy, so he traveled to Asia to gain the knowledge from a practitioner. He managed to employ the practitioner full time and they returned to Sebastian’s estate to help him develop his ability to harness energy as well as other forms of metaphysical awareness, like astral projection and extrasensory projection. The practitioner remained with Sebastian until his training was complete.”

  Ezra pauses and looks between my parents and me. “He didn’t have the energy you have Jesca. He had to work at it. But you—it radiates from you freely.”

  He motions to his throat. “The first generation of the device was worn around the neck, like a medallion. But, Sebastian learned it needed to be internal for better results.”

  “And what were the results? Once he opened the wormhole, where’d it take him? How’d he know he’d survive once he teleported through it?”

  Ezra sighs, “Leap of faith. He believed wherever he ended up would reveal his greater purpose. And the point B world wasn’t like ours.”

  “If it was so different, how did he survive?”

  Ezra continues to explain expertly. The more he carries on, the harder it’s to dismiss his story as lunacy; it’s too sound. “He took every precaution to be well equipped for all conditions, like extreme environments containing high levels of sulfur. and gases our bodies weren’t accustomed to. Sebastian had planned for everything. Among the gear were two tanks of oxygen harnessed to his fiberglass and steel protected torso. His helmet channeled the oxygen through the interior. He’d be able to breathe clean oxygen for approximately four to six Earth hours. He was fully aware that those hours might never be used if he didn’t survive traversing. He also calculated in that if he did get to point B alive, he may never come back if the oxygen were to run out.”

  Onoch sounds a bit like an asshole all of a sudden. “What about his kids? He was just going to leave them behind?”

  “Before his first journey, Sebastian made the arrangements necessary for his boys. His will was in order and the estate was safe just in case he didn’t return. His detached lab was ideal for withstanding the possible noise and energy that could be emitted from a cosmic event like this. Within seconds of the electric charge, the Copula was in motion and Sebastian was experiencing the pull from within. Once the wormhole was open, it felt like every ounce of his being was on pins and needles.”

  The travel time was quick, a few blinks of the eye. Piercing point A was the pull and entry into point B was the powerful rebound effect. Sebastian blacked out upon landing in the new world.”

  I can’t help my wonder. “What was it like?”

  “The environment was only dust and gravel and the atmosphere’s air appeared dense and heavy. Sebastian looked up to find a source of light. A sun and moon were almost invisible in the atmosphere. He’d charted constellations for decades. He was familiar with the charted galaxies and moons that existed in our universe. His eyes scanned the atmosphere above, whirling with a yellow-tinged gas. The temperature was well below freezing with a tundra-like terrain.”

  I interrupt, “So it was a lifeless planet?”

  “Subterranean life existed, though. Sebastian found burrows an hour into his expedition. The burrows were wide enough for a grown man to climb down. In the burrows, about fifty yards below the hard ground, there were open caves and caverns with springs. Sebastian steered clear of contact with the springs, unsure of the liquid’s composition and elements. Among the edges of these springs, Sebastian found plant life and fungal spores. They were exotic in appearance, a deep shade of purple and luminescent blue. Life existed in the springs as well. Below the crystal clear surface were iridescent green fishlike organisms.”

  Ezra looks at me, wide eyed. “Can you imagine being somewhere that you want to learn so much about, but your time is limited? Sebastian was running out of time quickly. The oxygen level in his suit was already low, reading forty-five minutes remaining. Sebastian needed to move quickly. He collected specimens and documented his findings. Sebastian also brought supplies to construct a grander scale Copula to attach to this world. It would be tagged like a homing device, for this world and for future expeditions. The Copula around his neck and the Copula on this world would always be linked, a union with their own uniqu
e coding. All that remained for this expedition was the naming of this world. Dobria.”

  I take a sip of my bottled water. “Did he get back?”

  “Yes. However, he couldn’t wait for his return to Dobria. After the first expedition, Sebastian spent days researching where in this universe he could’ve ended up. How far was he from our galaxy? What galaxy was he in?”

  “After analyzing the crystal-clear liquid the organisms in Dobria were swimming in, which turned out to be H20, Sebastian knew it had to be a world with earth-like qualities and elements. This only made him want to travel to Dobria again to discover other similarities.

  “His return travels to Dobria were more methodical and calculated. With the programming of the Copula, he was able to determine the coordinates of the galaxy that contained Dobria, the Andromeda galaxy. He’d programmed a link between the Copula in Dobria and the Copula he wore so that the wormhole would be controlled for consistent travel. Sebastian spent days at a time in the new world. Days in Dobria were weeks on Earth Properties of time differed so radically. Consequently, Sebastian’s body began to adapt to the alteration of time. The more frequently he traveled to Dobria, the longer the stays, the less he’d age. Other alterations began to take hold too. Along with the new environment he was studying and the multiple organisms that were being discovered on Dobria, Sebastian was experiencing physical and metaphysical alterations within himself.”

  I interrupt, “Could he levitate and read minds?”

  Ezra responds. “Among other abilities.”

  My sly smile turns stiff quickly, remembering my own recently acquired capabilities.

  Ezra continues, “His physical strength increased as well. This prompted Sebastian to start testing his blood after every travel to and from Dobria. The level of copper in his blood was increasing after every trip. The rising level wasn’t toxic, so he wasn’t concerned for his well-being. It did explain the advantageous capabilities that Sebastian was gaining.”