Waking Gods (Themis Files #2)(14)
—Can we leave my spiritual self alone for a moment and talk about Dr. Franklin?
—We are. What are you made of?
— … Atoms.
—Good man. Atoms, which are made of particles, which are made of other stuff. Matter. You’re a very complex, awe-inspiring configuration of matter that is stable at room temperature.
—I do not mean to interrupt, but room temperature?
—More or less. The universe loves stability. That’s why you don’t fall apart into a quadrillion little parts or a puddle of goo. But you’re only stable at this temperature. Raise it or lower it by a hundred degrees and you start falling apart.
—Heartwarming.
—It should be. Let me ask you this: Do you think your atoms are any different from those that make up the chair you’re sitting on, the sun, or the kung pao chicken?
—Go on.
—Of course not. You got a lot of what you’re made of from the food you ate. You have banana matter in you. Do you think that if I took two hydrogen atoms from the salt shaker and switched them up with two of yours, you’d be any different?
—No. I do not believe it would alter my essence.
—What if I switched more than two? How about all of them? You see what I’m getting at. If I grab a bunch of matter, anywhere, and I organize it in exactly the same way, I get … you. You, my friend, are a very complex, awe-inspiring configuration of matter. What you’re made of isn’t really important. Everything in the universe is made of the same thing. You’re a configuration. Your essence, as you call it, is information. It doesn’t matter where the material comes from. Do you think it matters when it comes from?
—I suppose not.
—So, as I said, Dr. Franklin is Dr. Franklin. If she weren’t, then she would be something else.
—I must say, I find you particularly unhelpful today. I will do my best to replicate this conversation with her, but in all honesty, I would be astonished if Dr. Franklin found lasting comfort in atoms and banana matter.
—If it makes you feel better, I’ll talk to her and I’ll tell her exactly what we did. If you want me to, that is.
—Why not tell me so that I can relay the information?
—You haven’t told her about me, have you?
—I have not.
—You should really talk to someone about your control issues.
—I have one question before we eat.
—I’m serious!
—So am I. I do have one question.
—You’re hopeless, completely and utterly hopeless … What do you wanna know?
—Why take her to Ireland, of all places?
—The device was nearby. As I said, it is designed to move things, and the closer you move them, the easier it is to control where they reappear. We didn’t want her to rematerialize in the middle of a lake or on a busy highway. This isn’t as easy at it seems.
—It seems many things: inconceivable, far-fetched. It does not seem easy.
—Then it’s just as hard as it seems. Maybe harder.
—I may regret asking, but how is what you did any different from traveling through time?
—You’re right. For her, it would have seemed instantaneous, so from her perspective, it isn’t different at all. From ours, well, I guess you could call this really, really slow time travel.
—I do not understand.
—The reason we can’t send information zipping through time, as you said, is that we don’t know where it will end up. How do I put this? Stuff moves fast. Really really fast! The Earth spins on itself a thousand miles an hour. It flies around the sun at sixty-six thousand miles an hour, while the sun is going about half a million miles an hour around the galaxy. Of course, the Milky Way is also moving in our cluster of galaxies, which is also moving, very very fast. And all of this is happening in a universe that’s constantly expanding. Four years is a lot of mileage to keep track of. I’m sure there’s a proper bullet analogy, but I can’t think of any that would do this justice at the moment. The point is, we can’t do it.
But her information did move through time. It was sitting in a drawer for four years. It took four years for it to travel four years into the future.
—So between the time of her death and her reappearance, Dr. Franklin did not exist, but information about her did, in a drawer, somewhere.
—I told you this conversation was a bad idea. Oh, thank God! Our food’s here.
FILE NO. 1433
SURVEILLANCE LOG—WORKSTATION #3
Location: Earth Defense Corps Headquarters, New York, NY
[01:01]
It’s 6:00 A.M. London Time. Jamie MacKinnon at workstation #3. Continuing remote video surveillance of Regent’s Park. Monitoring southeast cameras 1 through 5.
[01:03]
Selecting camera 1. Overlaying image from … 5:00 A.M. Perfect match. No movement.