Whole, p.5
Whole, page 5
He pauses a moment to let that sink in, and I try to wrap my head around the fact that the end of the world could be a realistic possibility, and in my lifetime no less. This was like something out of a movie, not something that actually happened. Beads of sweat start to form on my forehead as my anxiety picks up. “What can we do about it?” I ask.
“Well, there was a plan, at first at least,” he responds. “It was determined that severely limiting who had access to the cellerach stones and under what circumstances they could use them would allow necessary research to safely continue well into the twenty-third century, at which point they would be destroyed before the Earth suffered any irreparable damage. When the PGM first discovered there were missing Pearthians, those who only existed on Earth, the study of why it was happening became one of the only ‘approved’ uses for the cellerach stones.”
“So... I take it that plan didn’t work,” I say, “or else I wouldn’t be here, right?”
“Precisely,” my father continues. “Overwhelmingly, the people of Pearth agreed that no amount of human life lost was worth the fleeting pleasure of a trip to Earth, but there were some that were of the opinion that it wouldn’t be such a big deal if Earth was eventually destroyed. After all, you only become your ‘whole self’ once your Earth self has perished, so why not just get it over with and make a few bucks selling Earth vacations in the process? The trouble with this, other than the obvious disregard for human lives, is that as a Pearthian, you had no way of knowing if you’d be one of the unlucky few who was missing a loved one from Earth. Was it worth it to send that loved one to an untimely death rather than the potential for a lifetime of memories once you became whole on Pearth? I think not, but these people—they call themselves the lightbringers—disagree.”
Having been raised on a shoestring budget, I’m not at all surprised at the lengths people will go to for money, especially if there’s a lot to be made. “I thought you said cellerach rings were hard to come by,” I question.
“They are, or they’re supposed to be. Most of these lightbringers started as ex-PGM members that stole a significant supply of cellerach on their way out, but by now they’ve managed to recruit others to assist with the day-to-day logistics. The commanders are trying to keep track of the known ones, but we really haven’t a clue how many there actually are. They could be anyone, and we suspect there are at least a handful that are either current PGM members or local army of some sort.”
“What makes you say that?” I ask, thinking of the men in the tuxedos that attacked me and Jake’s other self. They certainly knew how to fight.
“Somehow, they’ve been getting access to the same intel as us as of late, information that’s supposed to be restricted to PGM special forces only. They’ve been showing up at inopportune times while we’re trying to track down suspected designate cases, and some of them are armed to the teeth with skills that suggest military training.”
“What do they want with us?” asks Jonah. He’s been so quiet I almost forgot he was here.
“Don’t you worry about that, young man,” my father deflects, changing the subject. “Anyhow, since cellerach is so hard to come by—almost impossible, really, for ordinary folks —the lightbringers can charge a pretty penny for a single trip, thousands of dollars per person. That’s nothing for the rich in this world though. Some of them have been taking trips to Earth multiple times a year for the better part of a few decades. With all this illegal inter-universe travel going on, Pearth scientists are now estimating the damage to the Earth’s atmosphere could become beyond saving as early as this year—sometime in November, to be more precise. What’s more, with the recent addition of Jonah here to the designates, we finally saw the pattern of November 11 birthdays. I don’t know how no one noticed it before, but I guess the commanders never bothered to ask about birthdays. They’re not very personable, those guys—real ‘scientist types,’ if you know what I mean.”
“My grandma brought it up,” piped in Jonah from the chair where he was picking at the bottom of his shoes with a pencil. The Converse All Stars again, same as mine. “When word got around that I didn’t exist on Pearth, the PGM reached out to her and she gave them my whole life story, starting with the day I was born, November 11.”
“It’s a good thing Jonah’s grandma is a talker,” my father added. “When Vincent got word of his birthday, he immediately contacted me, remembering that I had mentioned yours when we first met. That prompted us to look into the birthdays of the others, and we found they were all the same. This couldn’t be a coincidence. It had to mean something. That’s when we put together the connection to Armistice Day, and to the treaty. We did some digging and found indications of designate existence dating all the way back to 1922. Shortly after the original Armistice Day. So, a few months back when the PGM scientists announced that all travel to Earth must be stopped by November, Vincent and I already knew the date. November 11. ‘The reckoning’ is the code name we use for the date.”
“So, what do we have to do?” I ask, thoughts swirling around in my head. I’m trying to make sense of all of this, and some solid next steps might help me focus.
“Now that,” says my father, “is the hard part.”
Chapter 7
It feels like I’ve been here for hours, and all this talk is starting to make my head spin. I could really use a cup of coffee, so my father gets up and goes to the kitchen to brew a pot. As I watch him walk away, I get an overwhelming urge to chase after him, to throw my arms around him and feel him hold me tight against his chest like he did when I was little, not letting go. I haven’t seen him in twelve years though, and I was really just a kid then, I barely knew him. If he had shown any affection toward me at all, I probably would have climbed onto his lap and cried like a baby, but he seems more interested in the task at hand than the fact that he’s being reunited with his long lost daughter. I’m not sure how to navigate this new, adult relationship, so instead of following him into the kitchen I pace around the living room, stopping at the bookshelf to read the titles on the spines.
“Odd taste in decor your boyfriend has,” Jonah says, scratching at the couch cushions with his finger. “It’s like he’s ninety years old.”
“You mean...the other Jake? He’s not my boyfriend,” I say, blushing. “I don’t even know him.”
My father returns from the kitchen carrying a cup of coffee for me and a glass of water for Jonah. He sets them on the coffee table then takes a seat on one of the wooden chairs. I reclaim my position on the couch, and he proceeds to explain the rest of what he knows, which turns out is less than I would have hoped.
“The thought,” my dad says, “is that if we can get all of the designates together, or most of them anyway, in the same place by November 11, they will be able to destroy their cellerach rings which should, in theory, also destroy all of the cellerach on Pearth, preventing any future inter-universe travel from occurring.”
“I figured that one out,” Jonah says, grinning smugly. That doesn’t make me feel great about the accuracy of this line of thinking, given he’s eight years old.
My father goes on to expound on the discovery. “The first time a designate is brought to Pearth, they need another designate to do the bringing—a sort of sponsor, if you will. After he arrived on Pearth, Jonah’s sponsor, Bobby—the boy from Boston, now in his late twenties—was teaching him how to use his cellerach ring to return to Earth. Apparently, Bobby was going too slow for Jonah’s liking-”
“He was treating me like a child,” Jonah cuts in, insulted.
“Regardless, Jonah was getting a little impatient, and Bobby tried to tell him to calm down, that it wasn’t as easy as it looked and required a bit of explaining, but Jonah reached out to grab the ring out of his hand anyways. As he did this, their two rings touched together while their hands were touching as well.”
“The rings started vibrating like crazy and we couldn’t pull them apart,” Jonah says, joining in the storytelling. “After a while they just disappeared in a flash of light.”
My father leans forward in his chair, like this is where the story gets good. “When they went to the commanders to tell them what happened and secure replacement rings, they found that not only had their two rings disappeared, but a small amount of the PGM cellerach store had disappeared as well. Just vanished into thin air. They thought this must have been related to the situation with the rings, so they tested it again, having two of the commanders hold their rings together while holding hands, but nothing happened. When they tried yet again with two new designates—Abbie, the scientist, and Cian, a sixteen-year-old high school student from Dublin—once again the rings disappeared in a flash of light, along with another small portion of PGM inventory. There weren’t enough designates at the time to test this on any larger scale, and the commanders wouldn’t risk destroying their entire stock of cellerach during a proof of concept anyway, but they could extrapolate the theory that the more designates holding hands and touching rings, the more of Pearth’s cellerach supply would disappear. Just how many designates were needed, no one could say.”
This all seems like a real long shot to me, but what do I know? As far as I can tell, no one else has a better plan, so I continue to listen as my father fills me in on some of the basics I will need to know if I am to participate in this endeavor.
“As a designate, when you travel to Pearth via a cellerach ring, which is known as portaling around here, you always show up in the same location as your home on Earth. No one knows why this happens, but it can’t be changed. Native Pearthians can control their location coming and going, but as a citizen of Earth, and only Earth, you unfortunately can only portal into your own home. As such, the first time you portal, your sponsor needs to “feel out” your home base to get you there safely, which is a bit of an artform. Some sponsors are better than others,” he says, glancing at Jonah.
“I’m probably the worst of the group,” Jonah says, grinning. “So lucky for you, I’m your sponsor.”
“You’re inexperienced,” my father says. “But it wouldn’t hurt if you listened and followed directions.” He is only eight, after all, I think to myself. Give him a break. This new version of my father could be a little harsh, I note. “It helps to have the person you are escorting there with you, and the closer the better. Physically touching can almost guarantee you’ll get them to the right place, but it can be difficult to convince someone on Earth to let a stranger touch them for long enough to make the portal connection.”
“So how did Jake and I, err, the other Jake, I mean, end up in the middle of nowhere the last time I was here?” I ask.
“That was my fault,” says Jonah, proudly. “I told you I’m the worst!”
“The first time you unknowingly came to Pearth, it was because Jonah had tried to portal you over from across the street,” my father explains in a lecturing tone, directed more at Jonah than me. “After his first attempt to convince you to go with him failed, he thought he’d just force you to come without your knowledge, to speed things up. This would have been any easy way out, sure, but there’s a reason that shortcuts can’t be used in portaling—because they don’t work.”
Jonah rolls his eyes, and my father continues. “Because he was unable to feel out your home base first, he had no control over where you would be dropped on Pearth. Had you been calling the portal yourself, you would have landed here in your home, but what Jonah did was unprecedented. We weren’t sure how to handle the situation, but luckily your designate energy was visualized almost immediately—record speed, really—so we quickly had eyes on where you landed. By the time Jonah had alerted the commanders to what he had done, they had already confirmed your location and sent Jake to intercept you. Once you’re on Pearth, under normal circumstances, you can portal between locations almost instantaneously, but because you arrived illegally, we had no control over how or when you’d be sent back. Attempting to portal you anywhere might have landed you in the Sahara on Earth, and we couldn’t take that risk. We had to let it run its natural course until you vanished on your own. Jake was given instructions to ensure your safety for as long as needed, strictly as a precaution of course.”
“How did they track me?” I ask, uncomfortable with the thought that some people I’ve never met could follow my every move.
“Designates give off a unique energy,” he says. I shift a little in my seat. I don’t particularly like the idea that I ‘give off’ anything without knowing it. “PGM scientists in the 1980s developed a device to visualize this energy after one of the designates was accidentally portaled into Antarctica and not found for three years. But don’t worry,” he says, seeing the concerned look on my face. “Access to the devices is highly restricted. Only the commanders have them, and a select few at that.”
“Then how did those men in the tuxedos know we were there?” I ask, not buying it. “They came right to us. We were attacked.”
“We have reason to believe some lightbringers may have stolen a device or two, but they would be of a much older model, not very advanced at all. Takes them a lot longer to locate a designate with an old device, but we knew it was a risk given the unknown amount of time you would be on Pearth. Not to worry, if it happens again, Jake will be there to protect you, that’s his job.” This explanation doesn’t make me feel much better, but I nod anyway, and my father continues.
“The device works sort of like a heat map, and it can’t determine the location of a person mid-portal with 100 percent accuracy, but it can get you in the vicinity. Easier to track you once you’ve arrived on Pearth, of course, and your energy was particularly vivid. One can also listen for the signs of an imminent portal opening if they’re expecting a drop-in. The portals make a distinct sound when they’re about to open up, imperceptible to most, but those who are trained to listen for it can hear it coming. The commanders, designates, and their guides are all trained in this skill, though again, some are better at it than others.”
Jonah didn’t respond, but I could assume he came in last in this category as well.
“Jake is your guide,” my father tells me. “His Pearth self, that is. Each of the designates is given a guide, the most important person in their lives on Earth, though most of the guides are unaware their designate even exists before the PGM contacts them about their special assignments. Unless, like me, they have already died on Earth, that is. PGM sends a letter through the mail to inform them, though admittedly it could be a little less cryptic. ‘Your government needs your help,’ it reads. ‘Please report to the local PGM office to learn more,’ or something along those lines.”
“And what happens after they get the letter?” I ask, thinking of the Jake I met, so stern and dutiful, receiving this letter in the mail. What must have gone through his head?
“The guides have a choice, of course, whether or not they want to participate, but most are interested enough in meeting the person that is supposedly the most important person in their life that they agree without much hesitation.”
“And Jake?” I say, unable to hide my curiosity. I need to know how he feels about me, for some reason. I’m not sure why it matters to me, but it does.
“Jake said yes, of course,” my father says, dismissively. “He joined more out of an obligation to do what’s right than an interest in meeting his designate. Didn’t want to hear about you at all, in fact, and left the room shortly after learning of your existence. Said it didn’t matter and would have no impact on his decision. He’s a stickler for doing what’s right, that one. And strong as an ox. Should have been a soldier, really.”
I guess that answers how he feels about me, I think, embarrassed that I even asked. Lovely.
“The job of the guide is to protect their designate at all costs. They are your liaison to the commanders and the ones that help keep you safe when you’re out on missions,” he continues, ignoring my red face.
“Why would I need protection?” I ask. “What do these ‘missions’ entail?”
My father tells me only that initially they were focused on hunting down lightbringers, but as of late, they have been about finding more designates and locating their homes on Earth so a sponsor can be sent to turn them to the cause. Sounds safe enough to me, but again, what do I know? As a citizen of Earth, I am allowed only the bare minimum of information, lest I change my mind about this whole thing and warn my friends and family, which could create panic and alert the lightbringers of the plans in the process. Jake is not given much more intel than me, I’m told, but the commanders can contact him mid-mission to relay new information as they see fit.
“You’re lucky Jake agreed,” my father tells me. “Only your most important person has the best chance of protecting you. Something about the unbreakable bond you share on Earth, I guess. It manifests itself as a sort of shield here on Pearth.”
“It doesn’t have to be your most important person though,” says Jonah, his voice quivering just a bit. “Other people from your life can still keep you safe.”
“Jonah, right, of course,” my father says, as if he just remembered Jonah was still here. “You have nothing to worry about.”
Jonah is looking more bitter than usual, his arms crossed over his chest, and I decide it’s probably best not to push the subject right now. My father, oblivious, goes on to explain that if your first-choice guide refuses to join the cause, the PGM will go to the next most important person in your life instead.
“Has anyone ever refused?” I ask.
“Um, yes,” my father says, glancing at Jonah. “One person did.”
Clearly someone important in Jonah’s life was given the opportunity to protect him from harm and chose not to. Who would do that to an eight-year-old boy? I don’t want to upset him further by getting into it now, so instead I quickly turn focus back to the present.
“So…” I start, searching for a talking point. “If this is my house, where’s Jake? Or does he live somewhere else since I’m not around?”
