Chapter 10 – Talking To The Wall

Erik knew right when Tia went off for town. "Now maybe I can get some answers . . . ." he said to himself as he entered the Auxiliary Control Room, which had become the main place for the two of them to meet up.

Ciara spoke up, sounding a little reluctant. "If you want answers, you could ask ME, I've been with Tia for literally longer than you've been alive."

Erik managed not to jump in startlement, but it was a near thing. "Very well, let's start with you, what are you exactly, if you are not a person?"

"You might as well sit down for this; I'm going to use the main screen as a visual aid." As she spoke, images illustrating her words flashed onscreen. "What I am is not a concept in use much in this century, but the proper term is AI – or Robot if I'm being mobile. I have just as much intelligence as you, probably more book-learning, definitely as much language skill, but I am not made of flesh. Most of me is made up of what are called rare earths, such as platinum. These are put onto a special kind of "card", which resembles, in miniature, a human brain. Just as with humans, my "thoughts" go through my "brain" with electrical impulses -"

"Electrical? Like Tesla's inventions?"

"Dr. Tesla did not INVENT electricity, nor was he the first to find it, but yes, like that, except it's the difference between a, well, if Tesla is playing a piano, I'm playing a full orchestra – but like a raindrop and a lake, we're both still water. Where Tesla's genius is, is in HARNESSING electricity so that it can be safely used, and later generations will be building off his work a long time from now."

"If you are metal, how can you become human? Magic?"

"An author and scientist who will soon be born into this timeline, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, had this to say about magic and the universe-

1.-When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2.-The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3.-Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Magic is just a technology not available to most of this timeline yet, but as I must point out, we're not from this time and place . . ."

Erik's brain latched onto another point "If you're older than I, how old are you? How old is Tia?"

Ciara said, "It's impolite to ask a lady's age, but, I have been awake about 35 or so years, Tia is somewhere in her late 50's."

"50? She looks barely 20!"

"THAT's a VERY long story, but, in summary, while exploring, Tia found a place where old age is a treatable condition. She learned how, and was going to offer it to her family, starting with HER Erik, but . . ."

"Something went wrong?"

"You could say that – she came home, all set to give her family the gift of – well – forever, only to find that, while she was gone, disaster had struck. Time travel has certain rules; she can't just go back and offer -them- a ride forward, so she's doing it this way. Realize, she's sacrificing every memory she has, since by changing the past, none of what she remembers and cherishes will now occur (or at least, not the same way) – but if she gets this right, she will be the only one who knows this. Everyone else affected will have memories that she will not . . . . "

"And she's spent how many years on this already?"

"Somewhere around 26 – you didn't think that all that loot she's using came from nowhere, did you? She's spent quite a bit of time scouring old shipwrecks, and I believe she even managed to get her hands on the royal treasury of King John of England, that was lost in Brittany in 1216."

"And why are you telling all this to me?"

"Because you need to take this seriously, she WILL get this done even if it kills her, and I'm not using that phrase lightly. If the only way to fix this is take the bullet herself, she is quite willing to do precisely that. She is, quite literally, rebuilding her home and her family, so don't just laugh when she gets on a tear. Push back if something doesn't quite feel right, that's fine, but don't stonewall her."

Remembering how she'd already doggedly kept going while he'd been dragging his feet, Erik said, a bit ruefully, "I'm not sure I COULD stonewall her – she's as stubborn as . . . "

"As stubborn as YOU are? The apple sometimes doesn't fall far from the tree."

"What was the disaster?"

Ciara sounded reluctant, for the first time. "Do you really need to know that? It's pretty gruesome . . . and I don't want to put nightmares in your head, there are undoubtedly enough in there already."

Erik had to concede THAT point, but, if this "girl" was in a chatty mood, he was going to get ALL the answers he could. "I have enough nightmares that one more will not be any great burden. What was the disaster?"

Ciara answered, "I won't show you the actual scene, but, when she got home, she found this," the screen lit up again, and there was a note, in his handwriting with small spots of brown the exact shade of dried blood on one edge, and what appeared to be water droplets near the top, blurring the date. It was a suicide note. "and the body."

(A/N – Well, now we know what's driving Tia, which is reason enough for her to keep going . . . so let's get to building so we can get Christine back, which is why Erik will cooperate. As for Madame Giry, what does anyone else think? I see three possible options 1 - Stay in Europe, with Meg, 2- Come over to America and help Erik, and 3- Find a way past Raoul's ban and be Christine's confidante until Raoul self-destructs. Opinions?)