Chapter 37

Six years later...

Earth time: Sunday, June 14, 2043 5:50 PM Eastern Daylight Savings Time

Aina time: day 251 of 1449 H.E. 4:19 AM

Isabelle looked at the wall clock and felt a rising tide of exasperation. "People! In exactly three days the tunnel will open! We need to come to closure on this."

Cindy took a deep breath and paused to look around the situation room. They had made many changes to their arctic home over the years, and currently one entire floor was devoted to mission planning. The sweeping circular walls were covered with various maps, charts, and data displays. Much of their most critical data had been obtained in just the last six weeks...

At the end of April 2043 Cindy made the startling discovery that their portal in the Grotto in West Virginia was picking up a carrier wave for wide area wireless internet service. It took the three of them several days to understand the packet protocols of the system, and then several more days to spoof their way onto the network.

They quickly realized they were now plugged into the worldwide web of the WFM, and through the use of phased shadow quantum effects began to pull vital intelligence about the current state of Earth. Their new knowledge led to radical new plans of how to handle the imminent tunnel opening.

Jim looked as if he were about to say something, but Cindy with a link-burst asked if she could speak first. Jim nodded, and Cindy looked at Isabelle. "Issie, why do you want to come with me? Don't you think Jim might need your help at Ring controls?"

"My understanding of quantum slip physics will never be on the same level as Jim's"

Jim replied softly, "I'm not so sure of that Issie."

Cindy broke in, "Wait Jim, let her speak."

Isabelle shook her head. "Anyway, the big unknown is what we'll run into in West Virginia. This opening seems even more critical than the last. Through an incredible piece of bad luck, the WFM has challenged Hawaii Special Ops to make an appearance in the box canyon just as the Aina tunnel is due to open."

Jim chuckled. "Your conjecture that there are no coincidences inside a time loop seems more and more convincing."

Isabelle laughed back. "And it's you who taught me years ago that appearances can be deceiving!"

Jim looked over and saw Cindy deep in thought staring at several pictures mounted on the wall. They were taken in June of 2033, when a Federalis inquisition battalion finally found the bodies of Steve and Bert in the SUV ditched in the forest stream north of Harman. The pictures were captured by the WFM in December of 2035 when they overran the Federalis capitol of Atlanta Georgia, and Jim had recently lifted them from a WFM archive through the phased shadow quantum effect.

The pictures were several large blowups of the distinctive slashes in the leather of the driver's seat, a three-slash K, the calling card mark of Kilauea Security Forces. Cindy shook her head. "How did she know Jim?" How in the world did Kara know to leave that mark? And all the other false leads they made back to Hawaii... leaving Mahi's registration papers with Steve's body... traces of Mayoni's laptop to Hawaii... dumping Hawaii web addresses into the BIOS of WFM root servers... It was brilliant! But how did they know to do it?"

Jim was silent for a moment. The three had web access to Aina since July of 2027, when the lower levels of Spirit House were connected to the Aina internet. One of their primary data searches concerned the reason why the Hopewell left behind all their fake clues about Hawaii during their 1436 expedition. In all their years of searching, the three hadn't even found a reference indicating that the Hopewell knew about the clues, let alone the reason why the clues were left...

Jim finally shrugged his shoulders and said, "No idea. We've been over this many times. Either the Hopewell don't know about the fake leads, or they're keeping their knowledge of them off their internet. Both possibilities seem unlikely, but what's left? It is a mystery, probably an important one..."

There was silence for a moment, then Isabelle spoke. "Getting back to the mission... The point I was trying to make is that we might need all the recon and operations capabilities we can muster on Earth. The issue of whether Aina remains hidden from the WFM will be decided in the field. We can't plan for this in advance. This loop has been evolving differently now for ten years. We're in a much better position, but we no longer have knowledge of the future..."

Cindy spoke, "One thing for sure Issie. If you do go, it's only as an owl. Earth people would go absolutely nuts to see an eight year old girl running around now."

Isabelle laughed. "It's the same for you! The edge babies of Earth are thirty-three now. You and Jim look your age, fifteen years younger. You'd stick out almost as badly as I would! I totally agree. We go as owls. And if we die, we leave only owl bodies behind..."

The debate continued. It was close to an hour later when the three decided Isabelle would accompany Cindy to Earth. Jim would monitor the Ring in the great circular chasm alone.

Over the next three days Cindy and Isabelle made several sorties around the box canyon, returning through the quantum channel for quick snacks, so as not to eat and drink from the radiation polluted environment of Earth. They had perfected a technique for observing the Grotto without completing the transit from the quantum channel. When the tunnel opened in the late afternoon of June 17'th, at 5:50 PM, Cindy and Isabelle were perched on the same ridgeline they were on when the tunnel closed ten years ago.

Outside the bubble, they had no telepathic ability, but their wing-sign language had evolved to be almost as good as a spoken language. Isabelle fretted with her feathers and signed, "Possibility disaster tremendous!"

Cindy nodded agreement. The path was scheduled to be open for 23 hours and 38 minutes, and the three of them suspected the people of Aina might have learned enough about Ring control to force the tunnel to remain open even longer. With all the army patrols in the canyon, Cindy guessed the Aina presence would be discovered in a few hours, even less if they started sending exploration teams out.