Authors: Bill Diffenderffer
Gabriela asked if her Earth had a number. Plato had smiled and said it was #310.
“So we are actually the clone of that one?” She asked.
“No, you both are the same – like identical twins at birth,” answered Plato.
Plato then continued his silent collection of pictures and film. As it progressed through the years from 2003, a question filled David’s mind which he really did not want to ask. Plato answered it for him anyway. With Plato directing what appeared on the screen, panoramic shots showing large scale events were inter-spliced with video projections of individuals such as the President and other world leaders – leaders who David recognized as leaders of his own Earth. David saw they were alive on both Earths simultaneously. Then he saw a video of Dr. Wheeling giving his Nobel Prize acceptance speech – which David had attended, though he couldn’t tell whether he was there or not. Then that existential question was answered. Plato followed certain prompts that led to a view of Earth #309 where David saw a video of himself walking into the New York Public Library. Plato then used the documentary menu to search for Planck and found him on his island and Ozawa there with him. Manipulating the interactive features of the documentary footage almost faster than they could follow, Plato then found a brief video of Gabriela and David walking hand in hand past a bank and when they came closer to what was obviously the bank’s surveillance cameras, she pushed her hair away from her left ear.
“I’ve got a wedding ring on,” Gabriela exclaimed.
“As you see, the historical timeline has already started changing,” said Plato. “Here you are engaged, there you married earlier.”
Then the documentary continued with more of a focus on political events. It showed the election of President Morningstar and in one portion of video there was Hank Scarpetti standing next to him. It showed rising clashes and terrorism in the Middle East. Then there was footage of Hussein acquiring two nuclear weapons from North Korea and Iran building nuclear weapons of their own. Nuclear weapons from old Russian stockpiles ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda.
A view of the sky showed circling high above was The Bucephalus and then also The Freya.
Catherine Ozawa turned to face Plato, “So this was the Earth you were at before you came here? When you told me that you had failed in your previous mission – it was your mission to this Earth, Earth #309, that failed? That is why you came here – to rectify the mistakes you believe you made there?”
Plato nodded sadly, “I felt I had to try.”
The screening continued. Video showed crewmembers off The Freya meeting with al-Qaeda leaders. Those same leaders were shown to deliver a nuclear device into Washington D.C. with the help of The Freya. Then there was a high altitude picture of an explosion destroying the center of the city and a mushroom shaped cloud taking shape over the Potomac River.
Then within hours a chain reaction of nuclear destruction took place: US nuclear missiles destroyed Tehran as Iran bombed Saudi Arabia. Then North and South Korea bombed each other, Iraq set off a nuclear device in Tel Aviv and Israel retaliated against Bagdad. Then nothing happened for 24 hours and then China launched nuclear missiles against Tokyo. That was the end of it.
The silent documentary then showed the results and the victims. Fifty million people died directly from nuclear explosions, hundreds of millions of people were exposed to radioactive fall-out. The oil fields of the Middle East pumped no oil. Economic turmoil and world-wide Depression buffeted everyone.
The documentary showed how to make it interactive and how all individuals could use Google-like search queries to access menu options to see what happened to them; if there was a video record anywhere it could be accessed both by individual and by date. Then all in the room with Plato wanted to search where they were when the nuclear explosions started. David followed the suggestions on the screen and discovered he had been visiting a friend in Chicago and was fine. Then it was Gabriela’s turn. There were pictures of her walking through Reagan National Airport on the date the nuclear device was exploded in Washington and then checking into the downtown Washington D.C. Hyatt. Then you saw her in a crowd of people there for a conference. She sought out later images but nothing showed up. The counter at the top of the screen showing the date crept forward day after day but there was nothing more of her. Then she tried a different search query and there appeared a video of David speaking at a funeral and her family and friends were in the church pews. Dr. Wheeling was there.
Her friends in the room looked at her and could see in her expression that she had just lost something very important.
Planck considered not searching for his counterpart but then shrugged his shoulders and sought himself out. He found himself on Pirate’s Cay. Further searches suggested he had not yet made any important discovery. The Retreat grounds were unoccupied. Most of their followers had left the island to return to their families. Catherine Ozawa looked first at Plato and considered seeking out more about her alternate life. She decided not to know more. “My
qi
is here with me. I do not need to know more – it would only be a distraction.”
Dr. Wheeling just said that he would look later.
The documentary returned to the larger picture of events. They saw the US President and his White House Staff and more than half of the members of Congress were all gone. The man who had been the Secretary of State was now President; he had been out of the country on a visit to Brazil.
With a puzzled look, Gabriela said, “I’m dead on that Earth. I was alive but now I’m dead.”
David had tears in his eyes, “Somehow I feel it. I spoke at your funeral. We were married.”
Dr. Wheeling had stared silently at the screen for long moments, not wanting to believe what he had just seen. “What happened, Plato? I guess I understand that al-Qaeda with the help of The Freya set off a nuclear device in D.C. – but why everything else that followed?”
Plato looked around at the people in the room; all eyes were on him, all trying to understand. “One should never forget how ruthless man can be. Why do soldiers sack a city and rape and pillage? Why can leaders like Hitler and Stalin do what they did? The answer is that when given the power, man takes all that he can. When the United States was critically injured with the detonating of a nuclear device in its capital city, with its President dead along with most of its leadership, in that moment all constraints were removed at the geopolitical level – there was no sheriff in town. The United States was severely wounded. If you had a nuclear weapon at your disposal and longtime enemies, that was your moment to strike. Israel was suddenly exposed to those who sought its extinction – why should it surprise you when the destruction of Israel is what the Mullahs of Iran preach to their children at prayer? China has hated Japan for centuries. When it saw that the United States was momentarily paralyzed, it knew it would never have a better chance. And its analysis was correct. The United States could do nothing right then. And later, it would be too late; a new world order would have evolved.”
Dr. Wheeling was still trying to understand. “Plato, I was against the US invading Iraq in 2003 but now it seems that was the right answer. On that Earth, Hussein was one of the reasons the nuclear destruction occurred.”
“No Dr. Wheeling, that is not how to look at it,” Plato responded. “It is not so simple. Attacking Iraq in 2003 is one of the reasons this Earth is in such peril. To have gone into Iraq after Hussein or not to do so, that is not the correct discussion. That is thinking about the issues with your mind locked into a Twentieth Century paradigm. Historically, armies invaded countries for territorial gains not ideological ones. Hitler invaded countries to get the land and the resources and the populations. George Bush invaded Iraq to stop Hussein. He attacked Afghanistan to stop the Taliban. But when he looked up, he was occupying two countries where he didn’t belong trying to change ideologies that could not be changed by soldiers with guns – no matter how many soldiers or how many guns.”
“So we shouldn’t have done anything?” David asked.
“It’s very simple,” Plato replied, “If you don’t like an ideology or believe certain leaders are dangerous – kill the leaders.”
“But then they will try and kill our leaders,” Dr. Wheeling said.
“Better that than sending tens of thousands of young men and women into battles that can’t be won.” Plato responded. Then added, “You would be surprised how reasonable world leaders become when they learn that if they act ruthlessly or promote actions that are anti-societal that the other powers in the world kill them and their families and destroy their palaces and take their billions of dollars out of their Swiss bank accounts. When you want to stop a snake, just cut off its head!”
“And is that the lesson that you want people to learn from this documentary, Plato?” David asked.”
“Yes, David, that is one of them.”
“What else?” Catherine Ozawa asked.
“The world – both its leaders and its billions of citizens – need to understand how delicately balanced world security really is. Cataclysmic events start chain reactions of greater and greater calamity. This Earth #310 is at the cusp of dramatic technological advance that will be the equivalent of giving loaded machine guns to six year olds to play with in a crowded mall. Over its next thirty years weapons of mass destruction will be available to any ruthless nation or major terrorist organization; who will vouchsafe the safety of the planet? How do you stop the first triggering event?”
David thought about how he would write about what he had just seen. There were so many story lines that needed to be pursued; so many fascinating tangents that cried out to be explored. But what was the central issue that needed to be explained? Right then he had no idea what was needed – actually, that wasn’t right, he had too many ideas. “How much time do I have to come up with a communication plan?”
Plato answered, “Two or three days at most?”
Catherine Ozawa was as stunned as the others. She had used the documentary controls and found that several of her family members in Tokyo had died in the Chinese attack on Earth #309. “Plato, is this going to work?”
“Many of your Earth’s world leaders will discover that their other selves died on Earth #309. The effect of first learning of one’s alternate existence and then seeing one’s death is not an inconsiderable existential shock.” Plato responded.
Gabriela looked at David, “It’s like all of a sudden I lost a part of me that I didn’t know I had – but I feel the loss.”
“I can’t believe I am still there but now without you,” David sighed.
In the silence that followed each of them searched inside themselves for echoes of their other selves. Then Dr. Wheeling voiced his internal thoughts, “It is one thing for physicists to embrace the ‘Many Worlds’ theory or to have ideas of Parallel Worlds, it is quite another thing to witness their reality.”
Planck added, “I can’t even begin to come up with a definition of reality.”
Ozawa looked at her friends, “the reality is that the sun is now setting and we should all go out on the beach and watch it.”
“Fair enough,” replied David. “But even that is too much reality for me. I need a beer. Anyone else want one?”
They all did.
Chapter Seventeen
“Even if it seems certain you will lose, retaliate. Neither wisdom nor technique has a place in this. A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death. By doing this, you will awaken from your dreams.”
Yamamoto Tsunetomo -- The Hagekure: The Book of the Samurai
Too Many Worlds
By David Randall
The fate of Earth #309 which Plato has shown us challenges all of our perceptions and understanding. Individual existence is multiplied by two and perhaps by many more. We exist here and there and perhaps elsewhere. For some of us, our lives followed almost identical paths; for others the departures were greater: but in all cases, we were there. When we were unaware of these twinned existences we can be forgiven for mistakes we made multiple times on multiple Earths – our lack of connection excused our lack of learning. But now thanks to Plato we have peered into our alternate existence – a horrifying existence – and now it is up to us to see what we must learn. Repeating the mistakes of Earth #309 would be too horrible to contemplate.
So what must we learn from the destruction of Earth #309? The first thing to learn, it seems to me, is that Man can and has destroyed Earth. And if Plato is to be believed, we have done it multiple times. Leaders of the world are dangerously short-sighted, self-absorbed, immoral and supremely arrogant and, too often, megalomaniacal. Their pretensions are based on too little learning and too little worldly experience. And sometimes they are just plain stupid. The wise and benevolent leader is as much a myth as Unicorns and tooth fairies. Men and women with wisdom and experience and caring hearts don’t enter politics; they live quiet lives and write books which no one reads.
If that sounds too harsh a condemnation, just look around at the condition our world is in. It is a very dangerous place and with each new technological advance it becomes more so. Our leaders are not up to the task ahead of them.
I offer no immediate solution to this leadership problem. But I do know that recognizing and admitting to a problem is the first step to solving it. Our lives and those of our future generations all depend on us managing our Earth and its geopolitics much better than we are.
The second thing to learn is that life itself, for every one of us, is a far more expansive and mysterious reality than we ever imagined. Our existence is not insignificant; each of us is multiplied across the universe. Our Consciousness – together and individually – rules across time and space. Reality is our creation.
What that says to me is that we must challenge ourselves to take individual responsibility and voyage forth into a future of unknown potentiality. Now is not the time for timidity and shallow visions. Be bold. The Universe embraces us.
So yes, we can and must master the new technology that is coming. We can and must master the gifts of consciousness. We can and must find leaders that will move us forward into the light and not threaten us with darkness. All that is within our power.
This all may seem like a new challenge, but it is not. Mankind has faced this challenge before many times. And wiser minds and better words than mine have illuminated the path. I’ll end with a few lines from the 19
th
Century poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s
Ulysses
:
“Yet all experience is an arch where through gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished and not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life.”
Khalil searched the night-time sky for the shuttle he was told would come for him. As directed he had driven his old Volkswagen to the deserted edge of the city, near to where the desert started. The only light came from the stars and a crescent moon. The heat of the day was already dissipating off the barren rocky landscape as it was absorbed by the infinity of stars above on this cloudless night. Khalil thought it the kind of night for the doing of great things.
Impatiently he smoked a cigarette and glanced around to ensure no one else was watching him and then again he looked skyward. He ran through his mind all that he had done in preparation for what was to happen. Truthfully, he admitted it wasn’t much. Hasan was making his task quite easy. Yet it was his resolve and vision that had led to this moment. Hasan would furnish the weapon and the transportation. Hasan would get him to the streets of Washington, D.C. and then with the man Hasan was calling Plato, they would take the weapon to a place where they would have an unobstructed view of The Capitol and he, Khalil, would aim the weapon and pull the trigger. That act was to be his alone! They could be as much as two miles away, it would not matter. Then he and Plato would return to where the shuttle had left them and he would be returned to the exact spot where he was standing now.
This time he assured himself there would be no doubt that he would get the credit. Without giving details he had told others whom he trusted what he was about to do. He did not tell them how it would happen, so few believed him. That did not matter, afterwards they would remember.
He thanked the Prophet that he was being given this chance. That such a blessing would come to him was almost beyond imagining. And the manner of it was also almost beyond imagining. His friends could not have envisioned such a thing. Yet he would do it. His devotion and courage were great. Not without fear he admitted to himself. To go with these strange people from another Earth to fly to America – that land of blasphemous infidels – in a spacecraft he could see hovering in the sky like some huge bird – that should scare anyone. He was OK with his fear – it only sharpened his senses. Yet alongside his fear was also great excitement! What a thing for him to do! His fame would go even beyond that of those servants of Allah who had knocked down the Twin Towers of greed and corruption.
While staring into the sky, he sensed more than saw that a vehicle was approaching. It was something he could almost hear and almost see, he could not explain how that could be, but it was so. And there it was all of a sudden…landed, so close, not more than thirty feet away. He saw Hasan open the door and wave for him to come. He boarded the craft and almost instantly it was airborne, he barely had a chance to take a seat. Hasan smiled at him and said everything was good. Khalil heard him easily even though Hasan was several feet away. This craft was so silent Hasan could have whispered and Khalil would have heard. And what seemed like just a moment later, Hasan led him off the shuttle onboard what was The Freya.
Onboard The Freya he was led to where he was to sit and wait. He was offered coffee. Mostly he was ignored by the crewmembers except for when Hasan came to him to review exactly what was to be done. Hasan spoke slowly and clearly, as if he was giving difficult instructions to a child. Kahlil burned inside from the insulting tone but said nothing. Now he just must wait patiently. When Hasan left, Kahlil prayed that he would do well. He tried to relax but he admitted to himself that he was very nervous. He tried to not let it show.
Four hours later he was back on the shuttle; this time with the tall blond man they wanted him to call Plato but whom he had heard someone call Lars. It didn’t matter to him that they wanted to call this man Plato. The people of The Freya had their own interests to serve. Either way, they were serving Allah, for in Khalil’s arms was now a weapon like the one he had used to destroy the American Embassy in Tel Aviv. And like there, he knew how to use it.
From the shuttle windows he could see the lights spreading countless miles in every direction that was Washington, D.C. The night here was clear as well, not as bright and clear as on the desert he had left just hours ago, but still clear. He saw a wide river which from his study of the city he knew was the Potomac. He could not help but smile; he saw it! First what they called the Washington Monument and then the great dome of the Capitol! Such an arrogant display of wealth and power! Such architectural wonder should be exclusively for mosques proclaiming the wonder of Allah!
He knew they were to land at a park on the Virginia side of the river not far from the site they had chosen as the best place from which to fire the weapon. People in this country where everyone was so rich were afraid to be in their own parks after sunset and now it was midnight. Only rapists and thieves would be out this late in the park. Khalil laughed at the irony of that. It was all the advantage he needed.
When the craft landed, he and the one they called Plato went out the door. Plato was carrying what looked like an ordinary Kalashnikov and Khalil had in his arms the missile weapon – he had no other name for it. Both weapons were hidden under the raincoats they were wearing. The night air was a little warm to be wearing the coats but that could not be helped. Hasan stayed on the shuttle and promised all would go well and that they would be waiting for them to return.
The park was a perfect place to land except that it was not quite close enough to the target and there was no clear line of site to the Capitol. They had to walk about a mile along the river to the Memorial Bridge. Though the target would still be a ways away he had been assured that distance was well in the range of his weapon. A clean unobstructed line of site was what was important. If through the viewfinder he could line up on the target, the weapon would do the rest from there.
They left the shuttle and walked toward the river where they found the jogging path they had scouted. No one was in sight and wordlessly the two of them set off walking. Hasan had been very clear about exactly where they were to set up and fire the weapon. He was told to waste no time; that once they arrived at the designated spot, Khalil should fire immediately.
As a cloud drifted in front of the moon the night darkened. Kahlil hoped the cloud would remain there; he felt safer in the dark. Now he felt the momentousness of what he was doing. This city was a city of great power and he was just a poor minor soldier of Allah, a man of no power or great gifts. Yet he was going to strike at its most powerful symbol. He was fearful that he was striving for something too much beyond him.
He reminded himself that he was a trained soldier. Many times he had aimed a weapon and fired it. He had killed many opponents. He knew how to do that. That was all he needed to do now. Allah would take care of the rest.
As the site came into view, Khalil now understood why. Though deserted now, the designated spot, so close to the bridge and to the Lincoln Memorial certainly would have surveillance cameras. Hasan wanted them to show up on the cameras later – that was why Lars had been made to look like Plato. Since that was the price of their assistance, Khalil would go along. As long as he succeeded in blowing up the Capitol, what happened afterwards did not matter so much. Though of course it would be better if he survived, he thought to himself. Still, when he had strapped on the bomb to his chest before being picked up by The Freya, he had accepted that he might soon be a martyr to Allah.
The bomb he carried was his own idea, not Hasan’s. In fact he had not told Hasan about it. Kahlil wore it because he was afraid that things would go wrong with the plan. If something got in the way, he could always find another target in this city. He resolved that he would accomplish something – even if it meant his own life would be sacrificed. He would be a willing martyr.
As he and the Plato person walked, Khalil forced himself to breathe deeply and with a steady rhythm. He emptied his mind of all doubts and stray thoughts and just concentrated on reaching the designated spot, now just a few hundred yards away. The Capitol was already clearly in view.
Captain Nick Hoyle and his team of three other Delta Force members were rapidly closing in on the two men approaching the bridge from the jogging path on the Virginia side of the river. Like other teams spread out across the city for the last two days, he and his team had been hoping they would be the ones needed. Their instructions had been to just stay ready to move very quickly. They had also been told that under no circumstances were they to allow the target individuals to fire any weapon that looked like it might resemble a Stinger missile. Capturing the terrorists would be a good thing, but stopping them was essential.
Nick and his team had been on combat missions before but never on one that was inside the U.S. That made this different. There was no politically abstruse issue of fighting for democracy or defending the victims of geopolitical power struggles. This was no village in the mountains of Afghanistan where everyone spoke a language he had never even heard before and had been fighting each other for a thousand years and would probably keep doing that for another thousand years. This was his city. He was here to protect his home – he had been brought up just a few miles away in Fairfax Virginia. He’d gone on grade school field trips to the Lincoln Memorial and the White House and The Capitol. Now some terrorists wanted to blow places up here. Not going to happen! Not if he could help it!
Two days ago when his and the other teams had been deployed around Washington and told to be ready to move on a moment’s notice and all rules of engagement could be ignored as necessary, all his senses went on red alert. They had been told to dress in civilian clothes and try not to be noticeable. They didn’t need to be told that this was totally off the grid and don’t say anything to anyone. Of course they were told anyway. They had been told to expect some form of stinger missile like device that was going to target The Capitol but other targets were possible. They didn’t know from which direction the terrorists would come in from. And the missile could be shot from as much as two or even three miles away. That left a pretty large area to cover. And minutes mattered. Seconds mattered.