JOAN'S FLASHFORWARD

Chapter 14 Action and Reaction

"When a man knows that he will be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully -- Samuel Johnson

Luke paced the corridor outside the clinic entrance. Had he looked in the least like a suspicious character, somebody might have threatened to call the police, but there were advantages to being a bespectacled nerd with a self-effacing manner: nobody noticed him. As unfortunate as that had been in high school, it was convenient now. This was an awkward situation, but Luke couldn't figure anywhere else to go.

A couple of hours ago he had received a phone call from the local SEEDS office, from a friend he had made while during temporary summer work there. "Luke, it's so good that you were able to persuade Grace to come here for a comprehensive medical exam. After all it's not just her life at risk from infection, but the locals and her fellow workers too. She stopped by just now and said that she was on her way to the Crawford Long Clinic."

"What? Grace is HERE, in Boston? She didn't even tell me she had landed in the US."

"Um. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it. I thought you and she – well." CLICK.

Of course from the point of view of anybody not in the secret, Luke and Grace had not met in more than a year, and their affection could be expected to have cooled. But Luke knew better: he and Grace were intimate lovers. So why hadn't she called and said she was in the same city?

Luke went to the Crawford Long Clinic and asked the receptionist if he could see Miss Polonski, but the receptionist thought it a violation of medical privacy even to admit that Grace was there. Nor did Luke have any excuse for taking up space in the waiting room. Hence his walk up and down the corridor.

Finally the door opened and a familiar blonde came out. To his surprise she looked different: in the Dreamworld she always looked the same, but the real woman had let hair her grow during the past year, and had developed a tan, presumably by extensive work under the tropical sun. But undeniably it was –

"Grace!"

She looked at him and started walking the other direction.

"Grace! We need to talk." He started running towards her.

"No we don't, Luke. I need some time alone." She didn't even turn around to tell him that.

He slowed his pace but kept walking towards her. "Is it bad news? You let me stay at your side before!" He was referring to the time when he helped her through the stress of her mother's drinking habit.

"I don't know, Luke. Please, give me some space."

Why would she want to avoid him? He had never seen this behavior in her before, since they had declared their love four years ago. Could she have gotten a basic sentence of death from the doctors, and was too stunned even to want Luke's company?

Perhaps most males would have followed her and been more insistent. But Luke was used to giving in to Grace's requests/orders, and so he came to a halt, while she continued walking toward the exit. It was several minutes before he realized that there was no longer any point to staying in this building, and he might as well go back to Harvard.

In his dorm room, Luke took out his notes on the FlashForward. Not only would they get his mind off of Grace, but he felt that he might be able to accomplish something about the mystery. After all, he had hints from God. Joan had told him about God's revelations during the talk with Dad: that a "disturbance" was hitting Earth in April and that God had diverted it into a sort of space-time warp that stretched back to October and enabled humanity to see the future. What if Luke combined that with the widespread report that a supernova would become visible in April, striking Earth not only with light but with other forms of radiation?

Science was a good alternative to his emotions at the moment.

There had been other supernovas seen before in the last thousand years: one in the Middle Ages, which was described by Chinese astronomers and had created the Crab Nebula. Two others in the Renaissance, observed by the brilliant European astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johann Kepler. Obviously they had not created Flashforwards. What was the difference with this one?

One difference, Luke realized, was the state of the Earth. Earth during the earlier supernovas had had great individual scientists, but they were pre-industrial. The most advanced machine available in those times was a fancy clock. Earth in 2009 had machines all over the place, even in the comparatively primitive lands where Grace worked. Radio waves going through the air and the vacuum. Atomic reactions had been created on Earth, even when nations were reluctant to embrace nuclear energy. Nuclear energy involved quantum effects, and Joan had remembered God's revelation that a quantum-level reaction was responsible for the Flashforwards.

Luke went off to see Professor HeisenBorg in the Physics Department.

"But what sort of change are you talking about?" asked HeisenBorg. He was being scientifically critical, not dismissive. "New chemicals in the air, radio waves, even atomic research – none of those have shown the slightest relationship with the flow of time. Admittedly they have not been hit by supernova radiation before, but we could at least predict the effects from current knowledge."

"Maybe it's Dark Matter. We don't know much about Dark Matter. But human activity may have stirred up the Dark Matter, and made it vulnerable to the radiation."

Dark Matter was a term much in vogue among physicists at the moment. Astrophysicists studying gravitational effects in the galaxy insisted that there must be far more matter out there than they could see. They dubbed it Dark Matter, but they couldn't agree on anything else yet. Maybe it literally was ordinary matter that was dark, perhaps it was too far from stars to be lit up. Or maybe it was something exotic that humans hadn't directly detected yet. It was possible that they were surrounded by Dark Matter but couldn't see it.

The professor shook his head. "Luke, you can't simply say 'maybe it's dark matter'. You have to work out a detailed theory about the mechanism. Think of this historical parallel. The ancient Roman philosopher-poet Lucretius actually proposed the notion of evolution more than two thousand years ago. So why do we give credit to Darwin instead? Because he was the one who worked out the theory of natural selection in detail and marshaled the evidence."

"I'm not trying to come up with a formal theory," said Luke. "I'm trying to come up with an idea to avert a disaster. If somebody else fleshes it out and figures out how to keep the disaster away, then fine; let the Somebody Else get the credit. I'd just like to offer the idea."

HeisenBorg looked somber. "Yes, I see where you're coming from. It's rare that theoretical physics has a direct effect on human lives: first the atomic bomb, now this. Very well, I'll pass along the notion that the state of the Earth might have been significant in causing the flashforward."

"Thank you, sir." A tiny bit of relief flooded through Luke, but it didn't last long.

Back in the dorm, Luke brooded. As he had sometimes complained to Joan, it was hard to reconcile Einstein's God, the embodiment of natural forces, with something like Cute Boy God who might stop by to chat. And Dad had actually hit on the same idea from another direction. One did not blame anybody for Acts of God. But if you thought of God as a human being whom you could talk to, could you blame Him for the acts?

KNOCKNOCKNOCK.

Oh, great. Has God heard me thinking and decided to come by and argue?

Luke went to the door.

"Grace!"

"Luke, I – I –" She rushed toward Luke and embraced him tightly. He could hear her sobbing on his shoulder.

Luke kicked the door shut so that she could cry in privacy. When she finally released him and sank down to sit on his bed, he asked softly, "Grace, what happened? Bad news from the doctor?"

"No news, Luke. They're running a lot of lab tests overnight, on my blood and crap and everything else. But I'm steeling myself for the worst."

Yes, she always has. "But why have you been pushing me away all day?"

Grace sat silent for a long time. Opening up was something hard for her. But finally she said: "Luke, it's possible I may die in six months. I've seen people lose loved ones. Mr. Rove losing his wife, Joan losing Judith, Lily losing Kevin. I wanted to spare you that. I thought that, if I could break us up---"

"Grace, I don't think you CAN break us up. I'd continue to love you even if you beat me black and blue." He paused, his cheeks tinting pink. "Um, that came out kinkier than I intended."

Grace laughed, then leaned forward and kissed him. "I'll continue to love you too. I realized I COULDN'T stand to keep pushing you away, that I want you in my arms. Selfish of me."

"I'd say 'how loving of you' but…" Luke trailed off, knowing she understood.

Grace apparently thought the conversation was getting too gooey, because she looked down on the bed and changed the subject. "Ordinarily, I'd offer to stay with you tonight. Wouldn't it be cool to make love for real for a change? But whatever I've got could be catching, and we shouldn't risk it, not even with 'protection'.."

"I'd be willing to---"

"Are you being horny, or polite?"

"Um, forget I offered." Grace laughed again. She must need a good laugh at the moment. "But, seriously, Grace, will you let me go with you tomorrow when you go back to the doctor?"

"I'd love to have you with me, Luke."

The next day, with Grace identifying Luke as her Significant Other, he had no problem sitting in on the medical discussion.

"Most of the tests came up negative, Miss Polonsky," said the doctor. "But on this one, we found a new virus that hasn't been observed before." She handed the lovers a picture of a microbe, which didn't convey any particular information to either Grace or Luke.

"Does that mean I'm going to die?" Grace asked glumly. Luke placed his hand in hers.

"What? No, this is actually a sort of good news, Miss Polonsky. Instead of a vague prediction, we now know what test to use, and what to look for. After all, you're probably not the only one infected; it's just luck that you found out during your flashforward. We can send the test out and recommend it in that corner of the world, find out how pervasive the disease really is."

"But what about CURING it?" Grace said desperately. She gripped Luke's hand.

"We can start off research on that as well, now that we know how to detect it. But I have a question, Miss Polonski. Would you mind trying out various therapies?"

Luke, overjoyed that the doctor seemed optimistic, joked. "She means be a guinea pig, Grace. Doesn't sound very kosher."

"Guinea pigs aren't real pigs, Luke." She gave him a look, and realized that he had been joking and knew the distinction between the animals perfectly well. But she looked grateful for the joke. "And I suppose being a guinea pig beats dying. But if I'm staying here being experimented on, I'll have to tell SEEDS I can't go abroad for a while; I supposed they'll give me a desk job. Crap."

"Then we'll draw up some permission papers." The doctor thought for a moment. "Off the record, this is the weirdest medical case I've ever been involved with. A new disease, discovered because a couple of people had a vision. Flashforwards have certainly changed all the rules!"

As they walked out of the doctor's office, Grace gave Luke a big hug and didn't seem to care who could see them. "Thanks for standing by me, Luke. I'm afraid that we will have to hold off on intimacy until they get the germ out, but believe me, I love you."

"Yeah. At least we can dream about it." He winked.

"Meet in dreams while we're in the same city? I hadn't thought of that. Oh the possibilities----"

TO BE CONTINUED

(NOTE: Supernovas and Dark Matter are real scientific concepts, and I hope I described them properly here. The notion that a supernova combined with another phenomenon to cause the Flashforward was from the original FLASHFORWARD novel.)

(NOTE: Lucretius was also real. He wrote a scientific poem called ON THE NATURE OF THINGS that amazingly anticipated some modern ideas, including evolution, the atomic theory, and even the Uncertainty Principle.

(NOTE: The name of the clinic is an elaborate in-joke. There is a priority dispute over who first used anesthesia during an operation: a Boston clinic or an individual doctor Crawford Long, from my home town. So I had a fictitious Boston give in and honor Dr. Long)