The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(58)
Mia and Zack scribbled into their respective books. Zack’s notation was a quick doodle of Taft, with “1912?” written underneath.
Quint continued. “So, what changed? What was the first thing to happen on one Earth but not the other? Under current limitations, it’d be impossible to pinpoint the exact moment in which our timelines diverged.”
The screen changed to a black slide with a single line of text. October 5, 1912.
“However, we’ve identified the first major event to occur on just one Earth. That was simply a matter of asking. We learned that the date on-screen holds no significance to any of you. And yet it’s a day that everyone on this world knows by heart. It even has its own holiday.”
Now the screen gave way to a movie clip, a pulled-back view of a grand old city at the brink of dawn.
“This scene is from a 1978 historical drama called The Halo of Gotham. In addition to being one of the most acclaimed films of all time, it provides an extremely faithful reenactment of the event I’m about to discuss. There’s no footage of the actual—”
“What city is that?” Hannah interjected.
“New York,” said Zack.
“This is New York,” Quint replied with mild annoyance. “Hence the ‘Gotham.’ Anyway, on the fifth of October, 1912, at 5:52 in the morning, the entire—”
The Silvers gasped as a dome of white light erupted in the center of the city. It grew in all directions, devouring everything in its path. By the time Czerny paused the video, the dome had overtaken the scene, splitting the clouds and stretching deep across the landscape.
“We call it the Cataclysm,” Quint said. “A massive discharge of energy centered in northern Brooklyn, in the area once known as Winthrop Park. In five seconds, the burst expanded 4.7 miles in every direction, destroying 24 percent of Queens, 22 percent of Brooklyn, and 68 percent of Manhattan. Everything below the upper reaches of Central Park.”
Hannah and Theo covered their mouths. Amanda watched the screen in wincing anguish.
“How many people?”
“A little over two million,” Quint replied.
Mia clenched her jaw in tight suppression. She was a hairsbreadth away from bawling at the unbearable fragility of existence, but she didn’t want to cry. Not here. Not in front of Sterling Quint, a man who had a very cruel definition of “starting small.”
“To call this a transformational event would be an understatement,” he continued. “For America and the entire world, everything changed in an instant. Countless books have been written about the rippling effects of the Cataclysm—on culture, on politics, the economy. Those are all topics for another time. For now, I want to discuss how the event forever changed science.”
The projection advanced to sepia-toned photos of the altered New York landscape. A quarter skyline of Manhattan. A ten-story building, maimed at the base by a giant curved bite. A bird’s-eye view of Central Park, with a diagonal arc of wreckage separating the surviving greenery from acres upon acres of flat gray ash.
“As you can imagine, the mystery of the Cataclysm became a top priority for scientists worldwide. The explosion clearly wasn’t man-made, as the damage went far beyond the limits of any human weapon. It left no heat signature, no radioactive fallout. A person standing just five feet outside the blast radius could have gone on to live for decades. In fact, the last known survivor from that famous halo—an infant at the time—only recently passed away.”
The next image was an old photo of three pale men in lab coats, posing in front of an elaborate machine. David motioned to the one in the center.
“That’s Niels Bohr. He was my father’s idol.”
Quint smiled. “Mine as well. Though the cause of the Cataclysm has yet to be discovered, the energy itself was successfully reproduced by Bohr and his fellow Danish scientists in 1933. They called it the femtekraft, or ‘fifth force.’ Over the next two decades, it went on to adopt many other monikers. White force, whitewave, nivius, cretatis. In 1955, when its true nature was at long last discovered, it took on its final name. Temporis.”
The screen went blank. The overhead lights came on. The Silvers all winced in adjustment.
“Today we know enough about temporic energy to fill a library,” Quint declared. “And yet it’ll take a dozen more generations to get a true grasp of its nature. Simply put, the Danes had it right. Temporis is yet another governing force of the universe, the quantum building blocks of what we perceive as time. Though the cost was great, the Cataclysm triggered a scientific revolution like none other. We’ve acquired the means to bend time like a prism bends light. More than bend it, we can stretch it, harden it, even reverse it. Through temporis, we’ve accessed the watchworks of existence itself.”
Quint could see from his guests’ fidgety stances that he was flustering them. He swallowed the rest of his spiel and took the shortcut back to their concerns.
“For the last few weeks, you’ve wondered if you’re unique in your abilities. The answer is both yes and no. With the exception of one of you, all the amazing things you can do have been done countless times before by others, myself included. The difference between you and us, what truly makes you special, is your innate ability to wield temporis.”
He gestured at the showcase of gadgets behind him. “The rest of us need machines.”