All Our Wrong Todays(33)

Another glittering energy plume spirals harmlessly through the room.

And that’s when I see the sixteen faces. They’re not exactly as advertised. Skeptical simply doesn’t understand what he’s seeing, Awed is probably an exaggeration, but his eyes do go pretty wide, Distracted reaches out to touch the energy plume while Amused recoils from it, Angry is just spooked by the light show, Thoughtful realizes she’s witnessing something unprecedented, so does Frightened but he doesn’t like what it suggests, Detached is more like taken aback, Concerned is more like curious, Excited would be overstating it, Nonchalant would be understating it, it’s hard to tell Harried from Weary, Wise is more like impressed, and, while Jealous is entirely accurate, Cheeky is nowhere to be seen—that’s Pride.

Another bright silver plume leaps from the Engine, and this one hurtles right at me. It’s mesmerizing. Up close, I can see that within the energy whorl—the mollusk lick curling in on itself that’s come to symbolize everything Goettreider’s genius gave us—the glittering effect is because the larger whorl is made up of countless smaller whorls, which are in turn comprised of tinier and tinier whorls, an infinity of them spiraling into themselves beyond the subatomic, each a spinning thread of pure power unlocking a door to a future the assembled witnesses have seen only in the cheap stock pages of the science-fiction pulps they read, three-quarters embarrassed and one-quarter thrilled, wondering what it might take to make their vivid dreams a waking life. Like the virtual environment projector that ushered me to consciousness every morning, in this moment they were all launched into a floating limbo between the half-awake past and the half-asleep future. They didn’t know it yet, but the Goettreider Engine was the means by which their most outrageous dreams would be mapped onto the world.

“Jesus Christ!” Lionel says.

Everyone looks at him. I look at him. And I realize he’s looking right at me.

He can see me.

Because that magnificent glittering plume I was marveling over disrupted the invisibility field that cloaked me from view, rendering me translucent but visible—and I’d rejoice at yet another colossal error in my father’s grand plan if I wasn’t too busy having a panic attack. Lionel Goettreider stands rigid and pale, staring at the ghost gaping at him from across his lab.

It turns out I’m the Seventeenth Witness—Idiotic.





54


I fumble with the emergency reset toggle on my wrist panel. It wipes me invisible again before the Sixteen Witnesses fling their heads in my direction.

“Did you see that?” Lionel says. “Did anyone see that?”

“See what?” Ursula says. “Lionel, what?”

“So he’s Lionel now?” says Jerome.

Another plume hurtles out of the Engine. No one knows where to look. The most important experiment in human history is happening in front of them and they’re all staring at the empty space where I’m standing, about to engage the emergency boomerang protocol and get the hell out of the past.

Everyone knows what happens next.

After the initial pyrotechnics, the Engine stabilizes. With a flourish, Goettreider plugs in a light bulb to prove it’s generating power. The light bulb glows brightly, too brightly, surges, and bursts. Wiry fingers of electricity spew out, singeing the concrete ceiling. The power to the whole building goes out, then the block, then the neighborhood, then the city, then the continent. But in the darkness and confusion, the Engine keeps spinning, sucking up unfathomable watts, quickly filling up the high-yield battery Goettreider had set up in the unlikely event his invention actually worked. Once the furor over the blackout dies down, the device is evaluated by multiple teams with overlapping jurisdictions, and when the vetting process is completed, first the United States, then Canada, then Mexico and Central America, then most of the world is patched into the prototype, running off its ceaseless turn until a network of dedicated Engines is constructed in relay centers around the planet. A few countries insist on maintaining their own power generation, but on his deathbed, chalky and emaciated from radiation poisoning, his teeth and hair and fingernails gone, his eyes pulpy and blind, his organs a black and murky soup, Goettreider releases any legal claim on his design, allowing anyone to build their own Engine. He died without wife or heir, his parents and brothers and most of his relatives were murdered in the Holocaust, he had nobody to give the money to, and so he gave the world the gift of limitless power and the world gave him the gift of immortal stature. The future began.

Here’s what isn’t supposed to happen.

Goettreider isn’t supposed to panic after seeing a translucent stranger in a sleek bodysuit standing in his laboratory.

He isn’t supposed to yank the activation lever and shut down the Goettreider Engine midstream.

The Engine isn’t supposed to shudder and spark because the outrageous amounts of energy it’s generating have nowhere to go.

The harmless pulses of silvery light aren’t supposed to glint into a fiery blue.

A blue pulse isn’t supposed to rip into the control console, melting the metal and glass, burning right through the concrete and licking flames up the wall.

Ursula isn’t supposed to scream at Lionel to get away from the machine.

The next blue pulse isn’t supposed to shoot right at her, like it’s been aimed that way on purpose.