Discovery, Part 1 – Pieces of Old Paper
Be careful what you look for. You might find it.
[Author's note: This story, told as three parts, follows on from the series The Power Within, which in turn follows the series redwhiteblackyellow and Ice Queen in Love.]
Ruby looked at the sign on the door of the tiny office: BEACON ACADEMY HISTORICAL RESEARCH DIVISION. She wondered who had thought that one up. General Ironwood, probably.
It was open a little way; she knocked and pushed it. "Yatsu?" she said. "Are you there?"
"Down here," he said. He was sitting on the floor, on the other side of the desk, with an array of maps and books around him. The paper was old and fragile; the maps and books were mainly from the ancient library where Team REMY had faced, and defeated, Almira Gulch.
"I've brought some lunch," she said.
He looked at her, brow furrowed. The last time she had brought him lunch was ... not a successful occasion. Perhaps because she had made it. Amazingly, he had eaten it – which, in her view, highlighted the fact that he was a very brave man.
"From Edward," she added.
"Edward, good," he said.
She sat down next to him and handed him one of the trays.
"Do I get a kiss?" she said.
"Do you want to give one?" he said.
She leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek. This was all much easier, she thought, when they were both sitting on the floor. She had not yet worked out how to manage things when they were both standing.
He grunted. "Not much of a kiss," he said.
"Can you do better?"
He put the tray aside, pulled her to him and kissed her properly. She kissed back. And then there was another kiss. And another.
They pulled back. She giggled. "We should eat now," she said.
He grunted and picked up the tray again.
"Whatcha doin'?" she said, nodding at the maps and books.
He was silent for a while. Eventually, he said: "Have you ever wondered why people have such different names? My family name is Daichi, for example. It is nothing like yours, Rose, your mother's name. And your friend Weiss had a family name, Schnee, which was entirely different again. And we look very different, as well."
Ruby thought about it. "Yes, that's right," she said. "But what does it mean?"
He pointed to one of the maps. It had large brown areas and even larger blue areas. It was bit like the colours of maps used to describe Remnant and the vast ocean around it, but the shapes were entirely unfamiliar.
"This is very old," he said. "But look at this." He held up a piece of paper on which he had traced a map of Remnant. He laid it on top of one of the maps on the floor. "You see, some of the features of Remnant match this section of this old map."
"But that bit," said Ruby, "is in the middle of all that land. The coastlines of Remnant don't match."
He pointed to some tiny numbers on the old map. "These indicate what they called, at the time this map was made, height above sea level," he said. "If you draw a line through similar numbers, linking them up, it looks like the shape of the continent of Remnant. As well as the outlying large islands, like Menagerie."
Ruby pondered. "But the only way that could happen," she said, "is if the water changed its level, and went over the lower areas. Flooding, like what happens when there is too much rain."
Yatsuhashi nodded. "Flooding, but not from rain," he said. "Enough change in the water level to wash away whole kingdoms. But there are many things I do not understand. Like the use of this word 'tides' in relation to movements in water. It seems to make no sense. Water does not move of its own accord."
He held up another yellowed book. The World's Peoples. He opened it at a particular page and pointed to a picture. It showed men and women who bore a resemblance to Yatsuhashi – the same shape of the eyes, similar colouring, even clothes like the ones that he and his family wore. Not perfectly the same, but disturbingly familiar.
"I think," he said, "that this is the kingdom where my family originally came from, a long time ago. It was called Japan."
"I have never heard of a kingdom called Japan."
"I believe," said Yatsuhashi, "that at some point it was flooded. Washed away. Except for the top of its highest mountain. If I am reading these maps correctly, at that point there is now a rocky island. Not habitable, but it has been put onto our maps."
"So the top of a mountain became an island," mused Ruby. "We should look and see if there are other old mountains that are in the same places as islands that we know about."
"That," said Yatsuhashi, "is a very good idea."
They began to search. Comparing the ancient maps to modern maps, they found a dozen points of correlation.
They stared at each other. "Yatsu, do you know what this means?" she said.
"Yes," he said. "That the world we know was once ... this world. Remnant is what remains."
"Which is like something Gulch said to me," Ruby murmured. "You said that the map of Remnant fitted over an area of an old map. Where?"
He showed her. She looked at the old map. "I have never heard this word, Canada," she said. "Or this range here, called the Rockies. But it does look like the line of mountains in the west of Remnant."
Yatsuhashi nodded again. "It is all very strange," he said. "On the old map, there are cities and towns marked. But now they do not exist. So not everything fits. Here, look at this book." He showed her the title: Facts and Figures for Students. "How many people live in Remnant?" he said.
"I think it is about three million, across the four kingdoms and the islands. That includes a hundred thousand faunus, maybe a few more."
"According to this book, the ancient world had seven billion."
"What," said Ruby, "does 'billion' mean?"
"As I understand it, it was a way of saying a thousand million."
Ruby sat back. Everything Yatsuhashi had said was difficult to grasp, but the idea of billions of people was ... astonishing.
She considered what they had discovered. The implications. The consequences.
"Yatsu," she said. "I ... I'm scared."
He nodded. "So am I," he said.
Somehow, the idea that Yatsuhashi could be scared of something was the most frightening thing of all.
"But ... what happened?" she said. "What happened to all those people, all those kingdoms?"
Yatsu shook his head. "I do not know," he said. "But I believe it has something to do with this." He held up another book – the one he had started with.
Phases of the Moon.
He found a picture and showed it to her. A picture of the Moon. A crescent, a shape like Ruby's scythe. In the picture, you could make out the rest of the Moon, in shadow. The whole was a perfect circle.
It was not the Moon they knew.
Discovery, Part 2 – What Is And Always Has Been
Some things can be repaired. Some things can't be.
Ruby was sitting at the desk in her workshop at Beacon Academy, tinkering with a new design for the whiskey flask that morphed into a throwable disc-knife. She was finding it hard going – not because the task was difficult but because her mind kept wandering to the discussion that she had had with Yatshuhashi the day before, about the old maps and books. So many unanswered questions, so many things unknown, so many –
There was a knock at the door, and Professor Port entered. "Ah, my dear," he said. "So in addition to your many achievements and accomplishments you are now putting your talents into the design of clever new weapons for us."
She smiled. "I do what I can," she said. "Can I help you with something, Professor?"
He put his Blunderbuss onto the desk. "I'm afraid my old friend here is showing her age," he said. "The blades are not retracting as they should. It was damaged in the battle at the stadium, I think. Do you think you could fix the problem?"
"Hmm. I would think that it probably uses a Voight-Kampff double-springback mechanism with a pivoting hinge-and-triple-pin set, is that right?" said Ruby, as she began to take the weapon apart. "They're pretty robust, but eventually the Seltonski rivet can slip out of position. Ah, yes, I see the problem, it's the rivet and the Bradson guard-slide. I can replace them, I have spares right here. And I'll do a general clean-up and realignment as well."
As she worked, something occurred to her. "Professor, you mentioned in one of your classes that you are also an amateur astronomer," she said. "Do you know anything about the Moon?"
His eyes brightened. "My dear, I know as much about the Moon as anyone," he said. "Although, to tell the truth, that isn't very much. What do you want to know? It's rate of rotation, perhaps? That's why we see different aspects of it, you know. Sometimes the broken side is towards us, sometimes it faces away. And so on."
"And it's always in the same position, above Remnant, right?"
"Yes, within a small area of movement, which accounts for it sometimes seeming larger or smaller."
"And the pieces? How did they get there?"
"My, you ask a lot of questions, girl. Well, there is a theory that some time, long ago, the Moon was struck by another celestial body, one that was travelling through space. We call them meteors, or in some cases comets. The theory suggests that before that the Moon did not rotate, but always faced the same way towards Remnant. Although that was before Remnant existed, of course."
"Is it possible that at one time the Moon moved? Around the entire planet, I mean."
"My dear Ruby, anything is possible. If it did that, I suppose that sometimes you would see it as a full circle, and sometimes half, and sometimes just a curved sliver, and sometimes not at all. And it would have a significant impact on the oceans, pulling them up a bit each time it went around. We call that gravity. But that is all hypothetical, just theories. The Moon is what it is, and where it is, and always has been, as far as we know."
"Hmm," said Ruby. She tested the weapon. The blades smoothly retracted into the stock and locked into position. "There you go," she said, handing it to him.
"Wonderful," said Professor Port. "Simply wonderful, thank you very much. But tell me, why the sudden interest in matters astronomical?"
"Just curious," she said.
Discovery, Part 3 – In Another Time, At Another Place
After the end of the world, what might remain?
Professor Dorothy Gale was on her third glass of whiskey, waiting for her two colleagues to finish running the computer simulation. It had been grinding through the chips and circuits of the massive supercomputer for three days. She knew she was drinking too much these days ... but so fucking what?
Finally, it was finished. Professor Raymond Bolger, considered by many people to be the best mathematician in the world, slumped into a chair, staring at the rows of figures that marched relentlessly up the screen.
"And to think we were so happy when we showed that it was going to miss Earth," he said.
"Well, we weren't wrong about that part," said Professor Herbert Lahr, director of the research facility they were in and an expert in spectro-analysis. "So congratulations on that discovery, Dorothy." He poured himself a whiskey and threw it down.
"I look forward to receiving a Nobel Prize for it," she said dryly. "As long as it is awarded within the next three months."
"Miss the Earth but hit the Moon," said Raymond. "Just a clip in passing, really. A consolation prize, as collisions of heavenly bodies go. Is it possible that ... we are wrong? That we made a mistake in the numbers somewhere?"
"It has been checked and re-checked and re-re-checked ... well, over two hundred times, actually, by the best people in the world, with the best computers, and using the best data our telescopes can provide," Dorothy said. "The simulation we just ran was the last hope, the last shot at showing that something had been missed. And you see the results. If it showed I was wrong, then no-one would be more pleased than I, and I would be happy to give the Nobel Prize in Astrophysics a miss. But ... do you think I am wrong?"
Raymond shook his head. "I do not," he said.
Herbert was looking at a spreadsheet that showed the composition of what they now called Dorothy's Comet. "You know, if this wasn't such a catastrophe it would be an incredible opportunity," he said. "This thing is really interesting. There are elements we have never seen before. Some of them even have an organic quality. When it hits, the effect will be ... well, we don't really know. But pretty remarkable, from a spectro-analysis point of view."
"The simulations show that it won't actually destroy the Moon," said Dorothy, as she poured each of them another drink. "Just take a chunk out of it. The real problem is that it will change its orbit, maybe even stop it. One way or another, the gravitational changes will mean the end of civilisation as we know it. Seas rising, tectonic plates shifting, earthquakes and volcanoes on every street corner. It's possible that something might remain. Maybe. A small piece."
"Well," said Raymond, "I guess I may as well stop working on my book about climate change models."
The three of them raised their glasses. "Here's to the end of the world," said Dorothy. "Or pretty damn close, anyway."
"To the end of the world," said Herbert.
"And to the remnant after," said Raymond.
END