Author's Note: This takes place after the events in Keep Moving Backward. That particular story is currently on hold due to writer's block and dissatisfaction about the beginning of the story, but I will resume it at a later date.
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"Pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.
The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
Carl Sagan (Demon Haunted World)
Lewis gently traced over those words with such carefulness and read it with such attentiveness that the young inventor found himself in a transcendental moment. Pure understanding and resonance from these unspoken words struck the core of him. And all he ever knew and experienced. Lewis closed the book with great care and protectively brought it close to his chest; he swore the great man's warning to future intellectuals would not go unheeded.
The book then was sat upon his effeminately pressed lap and he looked up as lightning crackled in the sky, the light bounced against the walls, and after a brief, few seconds, the sound of thunder reverberated throughout the household. As a result, the mood of the Robinson household was gloomy and eerie that particular night.
Lewis didn't tell anyone, but he loved reading amongst the candlelight when there was a thunderstorm. There was something otherworldly about the soft words of books and humanity accompanied by the harsh sounds of nature.
What added to the mood was his solitude. Bud and Lucille were at a get together for InventCo. Of course, children like him weren't invited. Yet he found himself disappointed and even slightly offended at not being invited; he was beginning to become the inventing and scientific prodigy. In addition, his mother worked there and probably spoke very fondly of him. He sincerely believed they would make an exception and allow him to come.
Corporations like InventCo unsurprisingly had an interest in him. Representatives of the company voiced their enthusiasm for his budding talents and made remarks on their interest in him joining the company one day.
After surviving the harrowing events of being trapped in an alternative, future timeline with Wilbur and Carl, Lewis learned engineering concepts that have vastly improved his performance. He created just shy of a dozen patents that year alone while going to college full time.
Although Robinson Industries was in the far future, the boy could finally see how his current trajectory could get him there. It no longer was a mystery. Everything was miraculously falling into place. Like it was meant to be. Like it was his destiny.
Could there be such a thing as destiny? Like many things, he found himself pondering such a simple word. Destiny. Where had he heard it before?
He had heard it in the dramatic scenes of Hollywood. The few movies, from the industry he hated, that he only watched so Goob would have some company in those lonely stretches of nights at the orphanage. He had heard it by the overly religious who thought their entire life, all their successes and failures, had been pre-programmed for them to experience. Never had he heard destiny discussed seriously by the scientists and inventors; the women and men he held in such high esteem. Lewis almost chided himself for his natal observation that his future was set in stone.
The future is not set in stone. You have to make the right choices...and keep moving forward.
A mighty flash interrupted his thoughts and only a brief moment passed before a mighty clap. Lewis found himself unnerved by the intensity of the storm outside. The storm was right on top of him. Cold wind forcefully pried open the window of his room. His candle sputtered and wavered; it was desperately trying to keep its spark alive from the harsh winds from outside its abode.
"Oh, no!"
A cascade of water from outside invaded his bedroom and drenched everything in its path. Lewis immediately went to close the circular window that failed. The Anderson Observatory was old so it was no surprise when Lewis found one of the screws was forced from its socket from the otherworldly gust of wind. He picked it up, screwed it back in, and the window was successfully closed.
Lewis flicked the light switch to survey the damage. The first thing he noticed, was that his bed and carpet were soaked and so was his book. He made a frustrated grimace, and a groan to match, at the sight of Sagan's words distorted. He would have to have Lucille and Bed give him a new copy of the book. That and maybe it was for his own good. His Nikola Tesla alarm clock showed, with a faintly-green tinted glow, that it was already 11:45pm.
He went to blow out the candle but paused when he saw that the storm outside his home had already done so.
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