Touchstone (Meridian Series) by John Schettler, Mark Prost

states,
before our very eyes. Schroedinger said there is a difference between an out of
focus photograph and a snapshot of fog and clouds.” Dorland was pensive, “He
proposed the original thought experiment to show that it was not possible to
separate a superposition, it had to collapse… But in 1996, the National
Institute of Standards and Technology managed to separate a single ion of
beryllium into two states at a measurable distance of 80 nanometers.”
    “More physics? What is that
supposed to mean?”
    Dorland rolled his eyes
miserably. “I have no idea. Still, it seems to me that as long as we have Kelly
physically here, and we make certain that there is a data set easily available
for Graves ’ colleagues to rescue him, then
Kelly ought to maintain his integrity in this Meridian .”
    Nordhausen was eager to agree.
Then his thinking transitioned to the other problem that had been vexing him
all night. “What about the hieroglyphics?”
    “The hieroglyphics?”
    “The hieroglyphics! The Rosetta
Stone. And the other time travelers. If I didn’t cause the damage then they
must have been running a mission themselves. That’s what triggered the
alert—not my time jaunt.”
    “Possibly.” Dorland was content
to swim in uncertainty for a moment. “We’ll get over to the lab and see what
the Golems have for us.”
    Nordhausen pulled out his phone.
“I’m calling Maeve to see how Kelly is. Maybe even our resolve to do this is
enough to help him—even before it happens.”
    “Good point,” Paul agreed,
realizing that they were about to look into another box with the call. His
heart was heavy when he thought of Kelly again.
    Robert got through on the first
ring, and gave a brief account of what they were planning. Kelly appeared to be
no better, although he seemed to be resting comfortably.
    Dorland whispered, “Tell her to
meet us at your apartment in Berkeley . We can confer there. And use the code.”
    The professor tried to remember.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “And say hello to Alexandria .” It was a reference to a novel he had been writing on the
destruction of the famous library in that city—and a fitting metaphor for his
holding in Berkeley , as they had all agreed.
    He switched off the phone with a
visible sigh. “I don’t think she took that code business too well.”
     
    ~
     
    This arrangement made, the men
drove to the facility at Lawrence Berkeley Labs with as much speed as Paul
could safely manage. They pulled into the rain swept parking lot a half hour
later and rushed through the security station to the Lab. By the time they
pushed through the door, they were breathless with the energy and excitement of
their mission.
    “You work the DVD thing,” Paul
yelled. “I’ll check on the Golems.”
    “Where do I
start?” Nordhausen gave him a blank look.
    “The blue system at the far left
of the main control room. You know the one?”
    “Yes, but what do I do?”
    “Just do a search for any .MPEG
file. You’ll find it. Make copies and publish. Use your imagination!” He rushed
away, heading for the RAM bank center where he hoped the Golems would have news
for him.
    Robert located the data file on the
archival storage system, and spent the next couple hours copying it on every
available type of media he could locate. He set up a web and domain called
KellyRamer.com, and posted the file in every possible format. It was linked
into every University page he could access, and he added in meta-tags for easy
searching.
    When he was done, Nordhausen
gave a sigh of exhaustion, and went to look for Paul.
    “I made fifty copies,” he said.
“Have we changed the future?”
    “I hope so,” said Dorland. “The
physical copies are tangible. The probabilities collapse into certainty with
each copy you make because the chance of at least one surviving increases, copy
by copy.”
    “So, if we go back now and dig
up the grave, will the DVD be in it again?”
    “I’m not going to go find