Falling Forward
Chapter 3
-6:3:32:16
Sheila stared at Evel for a few seconds. Then she laughed. “Okay, you got me for a second,” she said. “I know all about hazing rituals and I’m flattered that you want to bring me into the fold.”
“What do you mean?” Evel said. “I’m not kidding.”
“Okay, I’ll play along,” Sheila said, as she leaned back into her chair. “What’s your evidence? And why tell me?”
“Look, I’m guessing you don’t care about impressing those guys.”
“You’re right there. I gave up trying to impress people during the last millennium. About the time I realized that most people don’t care about the important things.”
“I suspect there’s a long story there, but that’s for another time,” Evel said. “The reason I’m telling you this is that I — we — don’t understand what’s happening but we have some ideas. You might be able to help.”
“So, why here? Why didn’t you say what you think back in there? What about the ‘official secrets’ warning?”
“I learned a while ago that official secrets can get in the way of what’s important. Sure the guys who spill everything online get noticed, but we couldn’t do our jobs if everyone followed the rules perfectly.” Evel took a sip of his drink. “I’m taking my chances with you.”
“The folks in that room back there can’t see unexpected things clearly,” he continued. “They interpret the present in terms of their own past. The older ones can remember when the Cold War was really cold. The younger ones came up through 9/11 and view the world through that ‘clash of civilizations’ lens — really they’re just different optical prescriptions. If it doesn’t relate to their lived experience or that of their bosses, they can’t accept it, much less comprehend it.”
“I dunno. If this is a rationale to get me to join the tinfoil hat brigade, it’s not working,” Sheila said.
“Okay, one quick example,” Evel said. “Remember the anthrax attacks after 9/11?”
“Sure. Somebody closed down Capitol Hill by mailing anthrax spores.”
“More than that, but that’s not my point,” Evel said. “For the next ten years, if it didn’t involve anthrax nobody wanted to hear about it. H1N1? No way. Novel corona virus, uh-uh. SARS, not interested. Every exercise, every budget proposal had to deal with anthrax. They were fixated on it. So, when the flu pandemic hit in 2009, they were caught flatfooted. It got worse while DHS and Health and Human Services fought for control over the crisis.”
“I can accept that they’re not good with surprises, but you just made an outrageous claim about Inila. Back it up.”
“All right,” Evel said. “Here’s what we’ve found. The skins the guy was wearing? Stag moose. Extinct about 12,000 BCE. They had been tanned about 6 months ‘ago’,” he said, adding air quotes. “The atlatl you heard was Dutch Elm. Not available in Wisconsin. But there were spores in his pouch that were the clincher. They were from mammoth dung fungus. They were not fossilized, but active, and they were growing. Those mammoth herds collapsed from 14,800 to 13,700 years ago. So, our boy must have acquired them recently, only ‘recently’ was about 15 millennia ‘ago’.” More air quotes.
“I’ll grant you, those are difficult things to explain. But what about some sort of hoax?”
“Well, if a guy is willing to risk his health with such a serious case of measles, he deserves to have the last laugh. You were there, not me. Where did he come from?”
They sat silently for a few minutes. Sheila looked out the window, but did not really see the traffic passing. Making a decision, she turned back to Evel. “I must be getting crazy,” she whispered. “What do you want from me?”
“I’m guessing that you know where Nelson is. We’re thinking he’s the key, if he survives.”
“What do you mean, ‘if he survives’?” Sheila said.
“The DHS guys want to autopsy him to run a new sequence of his DNA and examine his skeletal structure and brain pan.”
“And autopsies are not performed on living things. But they don’t have to kill him to examine him.”
“Frankly, I’m not sure they’re that smart,” Evel said. “Remember the original ‘Planet of the Apes’? With Charlton Heston? When they first land on the alien world and find nothing but lifeless desert and wander for miles and miles? Then one of them spies a small green plant. What do they do?”
“They pull it up and kill it,” Sheila said, remembering. “Okay, how would I know where Nelson is?”
“You probably have some sort of transponder or RFID tag on him. Isn’t that standard procedure? But it’s not part of the case notes on your server.”
“You hacked my server?” Sheila said, sitting up straight.
“Guy I know, Ernie, says you should really keep your firewall up to date,” Evel replied. “I’m guessing you have a private, perhaps non-electronic, set of notes somewhere.”
“And if I did, you’d want to see them.” Sheila tried not to look at her messenger bag.
“Sheila, you don’t know me and probably shouldn’t trust me, but all I’m trying to do is figure out this mystery without any fuss. Fuss causes people to notice. People noticing can cause panic. Starting with these guys at DHS.”
“All right, let’s say I have some notion of Nelson’s whereabouts. If anyone is going to examine him, it’s me. No exceptions. Not negotiable.”
“Agreed.”
“Moreover, I decide who, when, and how to approach him.” Sheila paused. “Finally, we let him go after we look at him. He gets to fly where he wants to.”
“Also agreed,” said Evel. “Let’s get going.”
“Now?” Sheila said. “I haven’t even had dinner.”
“No time to waste,” said Evel as he stood up. “Airports have restaurants.”
-12033:15:16:27
“I recognize that many of you are science majors,” said the professor, “but here at Knox we strive to educate the whole person.” Although in his seventies, he held himself erect and looked at his class through thick horn-rimmed glasses. His suit was clean and pressed, but a bit out of fashion and looked a little shiny at the elbows. His gray hair was thick, long, and combed straight back. Still, he had a spark that the students had yet to discover. It was just the first class session.
The room was on the third floor of Old Main. The floor had creaked as Sheila walked to her antique desk. Like most of the other students, she wore jeans and a t-shirt. She felt liberated in more than a political sense without her bra. To her left, large windows showed the eastern sky and, below, Sheila could see the east quad. The leaves were starting to turn. She watched as a flock of Canada Geese flew across her line of sight to the southeast. She wondered where they might stop tonight to rest on their annual migration.
“As you may recall, just four years ago the United States had its first presidential debate in 16 years between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. It was, of course, a far cry from the debate Mr. Lincoln had just outside that window,” he said, pointing to his left.
“Out there?” said Sheila.
“Yes, Ms. Pennington,” said the professor, who made it a practice to memorize all his students’ names on the first day of class. “Right outside the building. On October 7, 1858. There were so many people here to listen to Mr. Lincoln that he had to climb through one of the ground-floor east windows to reach the speakers’ platform. When he straightened up outside, he quipped, ‘At last I have gone through college.’” Sheila’s classmates chuckled, but she did not.
“Abraham Lincoln walked through this building and stood out there,” Sheila said to herself, or so she thought.
“Yes, Ms. Pennington,” the professor said out loud. While his vision had decayed over the decades, his hearing had not. “You see, the past lives with us, whether we recognize it or not.”
This one still has wonder, the professor thought. She may do well.
-5:17:46:38
Mist curled around the footings of the building, shrouding the brickwork in a layer of gray. The sun had not yet risen above the horizon but the eastern sky was glowing. Dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans, and a vest with the requisite surplus of pockets, Sheila was warm enough in the chill dawn. The other warmth she felt was nostalgia. She looked up to the bell tower,three stories above her head. She had not been in Galesburg for more than 30 years, but Old Main was still the same. Not surprising, she thought, since it was listed on the National Register. She turned to the tablet screen glowing in her hands.
“He’s across the quad to the southwest,” she said to Evel and Anna, as they pulled gear out of Sheila’s van. Anna had traveled overnight to meet them. “He’s just south of the Gizmo.”
“Gizmo?” said Evel.
“It’s what returning veterans named the snack bar after World War II and the name just stuck,” Sheila said. “Have your team come up on the south side of the dining hall and stop there.” Evel’s team was a group of local police he had commandeered using his temporary status with DHS. He had convinced them that Nelson carried a virulent strain of West Nile virus and needed to be captured. He had been a little surprised that his gambit worked.
Sheila moved straight south about 200 feet and stopped. She bent down and silently began to unroll an object along the ground. It was the gossamer-thin net they had used to first capture Nelson. As it unrolled to its full fifty-foot length, Anna followed its progress and silently jabbed a stake into the ground every few feet, hooking each one to the edge of the net. When it was fully unrolled, Sheila circled midway back and stood to the east of the net by 20 feet. She looked at Anna to the south and Evel to the north. They each nodded back at her, bent down, and took hold of their respective ends of the netting.
Sheila crouched and waited, motionless and silent. Only her eyes moved as they scanned the far side of the quad. The sun rose above the Fine Arts building behind her and its light began to march across the lawn toward them. When it reached half of the way across, the sunlight lit up a group of five whooping cranes. With Nelson at the center, they huddled for warmth in the cool air. Once Nelson was revealed, Sheila raised her head, stretching her neck to its limits, and began a whooping crane call. The sound echoed off the buildings surrounding the quad.
After a few seconds, she repeated the call. Nelson had jerked his head erect on the first call, searching out its origin. When he spied Sheila, he began to move toward her with the rest of the flock following.
When he had covered half the distance, about 50 yards, Anna and Evel began to shift to get ready. Sheila made a snap decision, stood, and began to walk toward Nelson, continuing to make her call every few steps. Anna looked at her in silent question. Sheila shook her head slightly. Anna relaxed minutely and signaled to Evel to stay put.
Nelson continued to advance, closing the distance to Sheila rapidly as she approached him. When they were 10 feet apart, Sheila reached forward, offering a blue crab. She tossed it slowly to the ground a few feet in front of her. Nelson looked at it. He looked at her. Then he moved forward to grab the prey so quickly that Sheila had no time to respond. She stood frozen in place while he chewed and swallowed. When he finished, he looked at her.
Sheila pulled another crab from her vest and moved slowly forward, letting him see it. Tossing it in front of him, she moved even closer, within an arm’s length. As he picked up the crab in his beak, Sheila slipped a cord around his long neck, but it was unnecessary. He chewed, swallowed, and waited expectantly. Sheila called softly to Anna, “Bring the enclosure.” She knelt down next to Nelson, bobbing her head and making small bird sounds. Sorry, old boy, she thought, as Anna returned with a wire mesh cube. They slowly lowered it over him as Sheila continued to make the soft sounds and feed him crabs.
As the enclosure settled on the ground, Nelson tried to flap his wings. Failing and flailing, he let out a whoop. The other birds took flight and headed southwest.
-4497:3:25:18
“My god, I’m so sorry,” said Evel, “let me help clean that up.” He pulled a cloth handkerchief out of his breast pocket and knelt down to sop up the spilled beer, pulling his necktie out of the way as he bent down.
“You must remember to be more careful in the future,” said the young woman. She spoke with an artful precision as she walked away toward the apartment’s fifth floor patio.
Evel watched her retreat. Her long black hair swished across a formfitting dress of dark red. “Who is that?” he said to his buddy. It was hard to hear in the apartment crowded with people, fueled by drink, and pounded by music.
“Suzy Nakamura,” said his friend. “Some kinda genius at MIT. Finished a PhD in high-energy physics at 20. She’s a postdoc at Harvard, wormholes or some such thing. I think she might be outta your league, bro.”
“No way,” said Evel. “That’s the league I was meant to play.” He picked up two bottles in one hand and followed Suzy out to the patio, sliding the door shut behind him. The din inside made the glass door vibrate, but the sound became only a thrumming set of bumps.
“Well, that’s much better,” he said to Suzy. “I do apologize for spilling your drink.” He handed her one of the beers.
“Your gallantry is commendable,” she said, “but we have not been introduced.”
“I’m Evel Knebbel,” said Evel. “Yes, I’m named after that Evel, but I like to believe that I’m really one of the good guys. I’m told you’re Suzy Nakamura.”
“Yes, that is correct,” said Suzy. “You learned my name quickly. Perhaps that was not an accident inside, and you do have evil intentions.”
“It was an honest bump, but it did get us introduced. I hear you’re here on a postdoc, too.”
“Yes, I will wrap up some experiments this summer and start at the Fermilab in Illinois late this fall,” said Suzy. “Your statement implied you are a postdoctoral fellow as well.”
“I’m an impure biochemist. I’m sequencing some specimens at Harvard’s Native American collection.”
“So, you do genetic sequencing?”
“I started out in biochemistry at Hopkins, but got interested in paleo-genomics when I was visiting my family back in Arizona. Just to keep myself occupied in between interminable family dinners, I looked in at all the museums I ignored growing up.”
“All the attractions we miss because they are too close and too familiar.”
“Something like that. Anyway, looking at the collection of pots and other tools, I wondered if any stray DNA might remain. I talked it over with the museum director, who agreed on letting me take a sample set back here for analysis. My major professor helped me get this gig to run the analysis.”
“Do you intend to continue along these lines?”
“Probably not. I might be ahead of the curve, ’cause there don’t seem to be any universities looking for people with my interests. I might have to work in pure biochem. Prob’ly with the feds.”
“But should not one follow one’s interests?”
“Not with a hundred grand in student loans. Were you able to avoid that ditch?”
“I was fortunate to find scholarships and fellowships,” said Suzy, “but I worry about those who come up next. NSF funding is drying up for theoretical as well as experimental physics.”
“I heard you started early. Did your family encourage you? Is your family from Japan? Sorry, many questions at once.”
“It is not a problem. Yes, my family gave me every encouragement to excel. And they are partly from Japan; my father is Japanese and my mother is an American. They met when my mother was stationed on Okinawa with the Marine Corps.”
“Your mother was a Marine?”
“She is a nurse and was working at the base hospital when they met. She spent time volunteering at one of the local hospitals because she believed she should contribute to the community where she lived. My father was a physician in that local hospital where my mother was working.”
“What happened when your mother rotated out?”
“By that time they were married, but it still took many months before they were together again,” she said. “That was in San Diego, where I was born and grew up.”
“Was your family bilingual?”
“Yes, but I was encouraged to use English as my primary language. My father is a very formal man who insisted that I speak English perfectly. His desire for perfection became my drive for the same. I found it beneficial as I moved quickly through school.”
“Okay, skipping ahead, what do you want to do perfectly next?”
“My specialization is in quantum mechanics, with particular emphasis on the impact of negative energy in the Casimir effect.”
“Can you say that in one word for the folks at home?”
“Yes,” said Suzy. “Wormholes.”
-5:8:16:33
Sheila leaned toward the screen while Evel and Anna stood on either side of her. They were in a hospital in Galesburg, where Evel had taken over the Radiology department, repeating his earlier feat with the local police. Sheila had explained and cautioned Anna about the need for secrecy. Although confused, Anna assented.
The room was darkened to allow the radiologists to see all the details on the oversized flat screens. “See, there,” she pointed to a yellow area inside the cranium. “Ever see that structure in a bird?”
“No,” said Anna. “I’m not used to looking at avian MRIs, but that’s new to me.”
“It looks like a vestige of Nelson’s ancestor — originally a coelurosaur,” Sheila said. “More recently, one of the Hesperornis.”
“More recently?” asked Anna.
“Yes, we think the last of the genus existed about 78 million years ago,” said Sheila.
“Just what are you saying?” asked Evel. “Nelson was alive millions of years ago?”
“Not exactly,” said Sheila. “It’s a little hard to explain because it frankly makes no normal sense.”
“I’m glad you could join me in my world,” said Evel. “You seem to have a line of thinking, though. Why not just say the words.”
“Okay,” said Sheila, stepping back from the screen. “I think that Nelson came from a time long before human beings walked in North America. The structures revealed by this MRI suggest consistency with fossil records of birds going back maybe 150,000 to 200,000 years, perhaps more.”
“If that were true,” said Evel, “what about Inila? He seems to have come from 15,000 years ago. That’s a far cry from 200,000.”
“I agree,” said Sheila. “What if Nelson skipped forward like a flat stone thrown on a pond? Whatever is projecting these creatures forward in time may have more than one stop along the way. Nelson may have appeared in Inila’s day from an earlier epoch.”
“And Inila was just out doing the Jed Clampett thing when Nelson came along,” said Anna with a grin.
-5:8:12:44
A buzz started coming from Sheila’s pocket. They were walking out of the hospital and heading to her van. She stopped to answer while Evel and Anna continued on to the van. She saw the name come up on her screen. “Jim, why are you calling?” she answered.
“Sheila, I have some sad news,” Jim Padgett said. “Inila did not make it. He died a few minutes ago.”
“Oh, Jim, I’m so sorry.” Although she had initially thought ill of Inila, Sheila felt sorrow for anyone to die so early in life, much less a man who had died alone in a strange place. She felt worse for the man who had tried to befriend him. “Tell me about it.”
“I was with him at the end. Technically, I kidnapped him.”
“What?”
“Well, he was in the hospital in Minneapolis. Hooked up to all the machinery you can imagine in the ICU.” Jim sounded about to weep.
“I sat there for hours and could not imagine anyone would want to die hooked up to machines. Moreover, my heart said that he was not meant to be there — he needed to be someplace else. So, I reasoned, if we can’t figure out who his people are, he can at least be among those who understand what it’s like to be unmoored from home while being in the same place as home. I took him to the Sioux reservation. I told the hospital staff that we had to move him to a ‘more secure’ location.”
“Jim, I’m speechless. You just rolled him out of the hospital?”
“Yeah, hospitals are hierarchical in nature, so a guy with a badge and attitude can get away with a lot. Anyway, I and some friends took him to a sacred place that we don’t talk about to outsiders. Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed to be comforted even though he was unconscious the whole time. He passed this world with a bit of peace.”
Tears welled up in Sheila’s eyes that she hoped Evel and Anna would not see in the growing dusk. They had reached the van about 50 yards ahead and were waiting for Sheila to catch up with them.
“What will you do now?” Sheila asked.
“We will bury him in the Sioux way, as though he was one of ours.”
“I see. I wish I could be there, but don’t tell me where ‘there’ is. I don’t want to contribute to your problems with the Bureau.”
“Don’t worry about that. I can handle whatever comes from my superiors. My tribe will help me. They’ve been dealing with Washington a lot longer than I have.”
“You know they will assert national security or some such nonsense.”
“Of course, but they will be dealing with an Indian nation and not just an individual. We will legally tie them up for decades.”
-4344:13:16:08
“We believe that it’s a great opportunity for you,” said Carl Fredrickson. “Our firm has landed a contract to create sensors to detect airborne anthrax spores at airports, office buildings, even city streets. Your expertise can help us tune the receptors to detect anthrax and other airborne pathogens. We still have a lot of development work ahead of us.” They had just finished a sumptuous lunch and Evel was feeling stuffed and a little woozy from two martinis.
“This isn’t the type of work I imagined I’d be doing,” said Evel.
“Evel, listen, we need you,” said Carl, “and your country needs you. We don’t know if or when the next attack might take place. The sooner we can get these samplers out of the prototype phase, the better we can serve the American people.”
Carl passed an envelope across the table to Evel. “That’s our offer, in writing. It includes a signing bonus and the starting salary.”
Evel opened the envelope and read the paper. His surprise must have been visible because Carl said, “Looks like we have a deal. Welcome aboard.”
That evening, Evel met Suzy for dinner and told her of the day’s developments. “With the signing bonus and part of my first year’s salary, I can pay off my student loans.”
“But this is not the work you told me you want to do,” said Suzy with a frown.
“I know, I know,” said Evel, too quickly. “But I also have to be practical. Moreover, the work is vital to our nation.”
“I recognize the nobility of your motivation,” said Suzy, with more than a hint of sarcasm, “but I worry that you are joining a company that is taking advantage of a tragic circumstance. You will also be building experience in an area that it may be hard to overcome in the future.”
“Bio-preparedness can help protect us from threats that are too small to see using conventional methods,” said Evel. “It’s not the work I’d prefer, but I can’t find a position that will support paleo-genomic investigations of ancient Native Americans.”
“What about the position at the University of Illinois Chicago?” said Suzy. “It is closest to your interests and close to where I will be at the Fermilab.”
“I’d be in a temporary academic position at the bottom of the ladder with no time or funding for research,” said Evel. “Teaching Intro to Biochem to undergraduates doesn’t fire me up much. Let’s talk about how we might make this work for both of us.” He signaled the waiter for another bottle of wine.
Later that night, Suzy stirred under the covers next to Evel. “You awake?” he said.
“Yes, I am thinking.” She rolled over to face him. “I do not have faith in a long-distance relationship. If I go to the Fermilab and you go to Washington, we have no opportunity to see each other.”
“There are weekends and holidays and vacations,” said Evel, but his heart was starting to sink. “What about the possibility at Georgetown?”
“The Casimir project is the chance of a lifetime. I could not refuse this opportunity.”
“But Illinois? It’s nothing but corn and soybeans.”
“The Fermilab has the finest staff and equipment for my research in the United States. The idea that they will support my work is significant. Besides, you are set on going to Washington.”
“It’s just a temporary gig. Let me get started and we can reassess.” He rolled over on his back and soon started to breathe more softly.
Suzy watched the covers rise and fall in the shadowy room. Then I fear our ways may part, she thought.
-5:7:38:12
“Yes, sir,” Evel said into the phone. “It was pneumonic complications from measles. Aside from the fact that an otherwise mild viral infection became deadly, there is nothing biologically remarkable about him.” He paused and listened.
“I’m not saying that anthropologically he wasn’t unique,” he said. “He was clearly outside his normal time.” He paused again. “The DNA sequencing matches the work I did on the pre-Columbian genome. Moreover, there was the rib scarring that would indicate a puberty ritual, but those practices are not part of Native American rituals today.” Another pause.
“That’s correct, we still don’t know how he or the bird appeared here and now,” he said. “I’m going to video conference with Fermilab. I’ll see if they can help explain it.”
He ended the call and looked up at Sheila and Anna. “Let’s talk to an expert.”
“An expert on what?” said Sheila.
“Wormholes,” said Evel, as he lifted his phone to dial. It had been years since he had seen her. He pulled out his phone to begin what he knew would be an awkward call.
