DigiWriMo StoryJumping Part 20: From The Fourth Dimension

This is part 20 of a story jumping activity for Digital Writing Month. To read the story (so far), follow the links below. You can sign up in the Google Doc if you’d like to join in.

Part 1 Bruno’s blog started us off with a personal narrative.

Part 2 Kevin’s blog began the story.

Part 3 Maha’s blog continued…

Part 4 Sarah’s blog…

Part 5 Ron’s blog…

Part 6 Tanya’s blog…

Part 7 Kay’s blog…

Part 8 Ron’s blog…

Part 9 Dana’s blog

Part 10 Tania’s blog

Part 11 Maureen’s blog

Part 12 Sue’s blog

Part 13 Rhonda’s blog

Part 14 Yin Wah Kreher’s blog

Part 15 Scott’s blog

Part 16 Jeffrey’s blog

Part 17 Wendy’s blog

Part 18  Charlene’s blog

Part 19 Mariam’s blog

Things were not going exactly as planned. But that was actually part of their version of the plan. They put the time crystal down and looked up at each other, both nodding with the same sense of contentment. “I think they’ll be Ok” Kal* said. Kara** allowed a smile to sneak across her face as she said, “I think Wry just made that possible.” They didn’t need to say any more. As cousins, they had similar instincts and deeply understood that saving Earth was about helping the people of Earth to save themselves.

The idea that “time is a flat circle” was new evidence that these humans who they had chosen to bring along a little faster in the process, could eventually understand a tesseract and hopefully become a part of the plan of their own free will. But the waiting and the nurturing through these steps was agonizing. Fortunately, there already were hints of the larger population’s understanding. That Madeleine L’Enge book with the chapter about young Charles who understood a tesseract and its role in time travel. And that movie Interstellar with its bold sandwiching of so many of the complex ideas needed to see the universe in a new way. And Kevin and his CLMOOC friends with their openness to tinkering and rethinking technologies. There certainly was reason for hope.

Kal and Kara had broken away from the others at the Fibonacci Institute who wanted to rush in and “teach the Earth people” and “save the planet.” The Institute believed that if humans hadn’t applied the Golden Section to astro-physics*** even though the concept had been known since the 13th century, how would they understand time travel? Every day the  planet was slowly moving into their galaxy’s fourth dimensional sphere and the people of Earth needed to be ready. A few centuries was not a long time when it came to space and time travel. So the two cousins had created the maps with their time and space altering abilities to help select humans learn how to handle the new sense of reality they would be living with – how to handle being a jumper – slowly. Kevin was just beginning to understand how it worked – kind of like that series of books about The Time Warp Trio. But he had already missed one clue that they originally argued about whether it was too obvious or not. The hidden pattern in the paper the map was printed on was, in fact, a tessellation. By using a magnifying glass or by soaking the map in water, one could see the pattern and, hopefully, make the connection to the larger concepts in this new way of looking at the world. Could they even connect a tesselation to time travel? Kal wasn’t so sure. Kara thought it was worth the time to let them figure it out for themselves.

But now, Wry was helping them get there a little faster by suggesting that the 2^nd map was not important. Yes, one would do. And indeed music was a language that would help them all understand each other despite the dialects, the loss of vision, the guns. And ultimately, connecting rather than separating the people of Earth was going to be important in their ability to understand – and live in – the fourth dimension. Things were looking up!

Suddenly the time crystal starting blinking again, their signal that Kevin and Sarah were on the move. Knowing their little troop of humans was headed to Hawaii had  not presented any urgency for Kal and Kara, but now their eyes opened wide when they saw the image in the crystal. What was happening??!!

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*Kal is a descendant of Kal-El (later known as Superman), the son of  Jor-El. **Kara is a descendant of Kara Zor-El (later known as Supergirl) ***He may actually be wrong about this – spiral galaxies have been recognized as demonstrating the pattern.