A Man Through Time

There were many things about the future that I didn't quite understand. After Yanna and I arrived at the university lab, I dove straight in.

My first concern was the speed of the outbreak. Usually, outbreaks have many signs before they fully emerge—things like dead animals, specific plant life, and isolated cases of sick people so obscure that even most trained eyes miss them. During this phase, the virus hones its tactics. It wants to replicate, infecting as many people as possible and keeping them alive long enough to aid in the spread of its viral DNA. This way, it keeps evolving—getting better and better—until the pandemic fully blooms.

It was for this reason that I called Yanna. Back in the military, she was a civilian consultant for situations like this. My job was to identify and contain biological, radiological, and chemical threats. Our team worked around the world, tracking threats in places of experimental research—otherwise termed dark labs.

If anyone's system could track my virus, it was hers. Even at a university, she was still handling dangerous materials in the name of science. While the system worked on my search, Meredith drew my blood and gave me a full workup.

As time went on, I could no longer ignore the changes in my body. I was taller, stronger, more agile, and dexterous. I had left the present and returned as a completely different person.

After the workup, I took samples from one of my talon daggers, then ran comparisons through multiple databases to figure out how different the beast was compared to its present-day precursor—if it even had one.

Now, all I could do was wait.

___________________________________________

"I know you…" a young woman said, crouched beside me.

My eyes fluttered and I yawned. I hadn't slept well in over a month, and my first good night of sleep was ruined by a wide-eyed...

"Who?" I asked.

"Meredith. Call me Mere... I know you," she said again, this time with a big smile.

"Very few people know me," I told her.

"Professor Tejada is one of them," she replied. "You're kinda cuter than your pictures."

"Meredith." A cold tone rolled across the room like thick fog.

I chuckled a bit and said, "Leave her be."

I sat up in the two chairs I had pushed together and called a bed. I stretched my body, then smiled—calm and gentle—but I could see the beads of sweat pearled on Yanna's forehead.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"The specimen you brought is very healthy, with no sign of degradation. And unlike low-copy number samples, yours was plentiful—enough for multiple tests to verify our work. To make things more peculiar, the results from your samples match some very questionable sources," Meredith explained in one breath.

"Explain," I said, staring at Yanna.

"Allow me," Meredith jumped in. "First, let me say this: there are three types of scientists in my book. The Immortalists are looking to conquer age and death. The Changers believe everything they do will bring a new era for humanity. And finally, the Seekers. Seekers pursue science for the sake of knowledge—to unravel the mysteries of the world and of humanity. The sample you brought will attract all three."

"And which are you?" I asked them both.

"The professor doesn't count. She's a reformed money grubber. I, on the other hand, am a Seeker. It's actually why she chose me to be her assistant."

"And—" Yanna finally put a muzzle on the energetic girl, "—your specimen is what Seekers refer to as a Looking Glass. It's an object that blurs the lines between what we know and what we theorize. A gateway to rewrite and plug the holes in science."

"Meredith, how about educating me?" I honestly liked her energy.

"Happily," she sang.

Moving across the lab, she whispered while passing Yanna, "Your ex is great. Just broke up with James… He says I talk too much."

"Mr. Kaelix!" Meredith nearly shouted. She looked at me with blazing eyes. "Please, invade my personal space."

"Uh... okay." I stepped closer, hovering over her shoulder as she sat at her computer.

"The main reason Boss Prof called me in is because I'm a major ancient alien fan. I get off on this stuff. And your existence definitely gets me all hot and moist."

"Mere, please focus," Yanna pleaded.

Meredith bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath. "Mr. Kaelix, the reason you excite me so much isn't because of your looks. It's because you're like a primordial beast. It's what Dr. Yi calls the dragons, elves, and mythical creatures of legend. It sounds insane, but bear with me. Humans have this thing called Dark DNA. Dark DNA is the non-coding portion of the genome—constituting roughly 98% of our DNA. Animals have it too. Dr. Yi believes this is linked to primordial beasts. He even goes as far as to break them into categories."

"What kind of categories?" I inquired.

"That's what I'm doing now."

Meredith went on to expand my world regarding the topic of Primordial Beasts. Dr. Yi was a man from Taiwan. His father was a Daoist who believed in celestials and the many stories of the religion. Dr. Yi admired his father and wanted to prove him right—especially after enduring years of bullying in school.

In his early college years, he interned at paleo digs and discovered a bird-like creature with unexplainable extra bones related to a sea creature. While he attributed it to the mythical Kunpeng of legend, his peers disapproved. One of them published a paper identifying the site as a location of a mass extinction event. Everything Dr. Yi had claimed was overlooked and forgotten.

Since then, Dr. Yi has been hunting for what he calls primordial beasts and cataloging their DNA as source evidence.

After the quick lesson, Meredith broke down the DNA markers of the bird-beast I had provided. Its structure was incredibly similar to the Dark DNA of the Roc. Even more interesting—my personal DNA strongly resembled a body found in Africa.

"Dr. Yi identified him as the hero Mukasa of the Baganda—a man said to be born of gods," Meredith said.

Dr. Yi's final theory was that humanity had been corrupted over generations, diverging from our original genetic source. This divergence is represented by Dark DNA. In order to illuminate and express this DNA, we must rebuild the triple helix and tap into the 98% of genetic potential lost to us.

"The odd thing about the talon DNA you provided," Meredith added, "is that it contains another compound that's rather ominous."

"What do you mean?" Yanna asked.

"During my freshman year, my class took a trip to Henan. All the metallurgists and astrophysicists did," she said. "At the time, a meteorite was said to 'blip' into the atmosphere. It crashed in Henan. The size was unknown, and the government issued a statement saying radars had undergone a system update and came back online too late to track it. In conclusion, it didn't 'blip'—we were just blind."

"And no one believes that…" I was starting to get a feel for Meredith.

"I knew I liked you," she muttered. "Before anyone important could arrive, the meteorite disappeared, only to later reappear on the black market. It sold for two million euros. A year later, someone claiming to have snagged a fragment from Henan posted its atomic structure online."

"That metal appeared in the talon sample?" I pretended to be confused. Still, I immediately went to the sword that had traveled through time with me. I'd sharpened the talon daggers with that blade.

"Yup…" Meredith went silent for a moment and began to twiddle her fingers.

"Mr. Kaelix," she said, becoming sheepish, "you live a pretty exciting life, don't you?"

"Haa, I'm really a simple man… So, who do I speak with about this space metal?"

"Professor Venderbolt. But I have a lecture in an hour…" Yanna was checking her watch as she grabbed her things.

"I'll take him," Meredith said quickly.

Yanna gave me an intense look. It was easy to miss, masked with concern. If my old unit were around, they'd say, Tejada has the dollar-bill look again.

________________________________________________

Professor Venderbolt was a pretentious older white man with salt-and-pepper hair and a potbelly like St. Nick. He studied metallurgy and astrophysics, and like Meredith, he was all about ancient aliens, considering himself a leading expert in the field.

His office was cluttered with meteorites and odd metals. The walls were covered with pictures of crater sites and atomic structures of elements I had never seen before. On his desk, beside the computer, was a stand holding a single metal shard with a silvery-blue hue. It was hard not to compare it to my sword—its luster and sharpness were uncannily similar.

"So she finally let you out of the cage," Venderbolt teased Meredith.

She giggled. "Aish… You're still mad I left your project."

The professor rolled his eyes.

"Don't be like that. After today, we'll call it even," Meredith said.

"What could possibly—"

Professor Venderbolt drifted into silence as I pulled the sword from my back and placed it on his desk. I wasn't worried about secrets or enigmatic presentations. First, I couldn't trust Yanna Tejada to keep my business to herself—she belonged to the private sector, and I was sure university life had probably killed what little integrity she still had. Secondly, the world was due to expire soon. I planned to do everything I could to survive it.

"Blimey… this… this is impossible," he gasped.

He scrambled around the office, quickly donning his protective gear before taking a closer look at the mysterious sword. He examined it through a focused lens, scraped at it, and performed a few other odd tests before setting it down again.

The professor sat in his chair, babbling like a madman with a crazed look in his eyes. As he did, I picked up the sword and moved to sheath it. That's when the tip came a little too close to the shard on his desk.

The shard began to tremble—and a moment later, it flew from the stand and was absorbed into the sword.

The three of us backed away in shock. The sword fell from my hand, and we watched as its surface rippled like liquid before settling once more.

"Ahh… who are you?" the professor asked.

"I felt the same way," Meredith said with pride. "A very exciting man."

"That he is," the professor muttered. "That nearly fantastical event aside, I only know of one place with enough raw material to turn that type of metal into a sword—which is utterly useless in the modern era. Immensely wasteful."

"The Henan meteorite," I said.

"Oh, you know your stuff," said the professor. "The Henan meteorite is currently in the possession of Ace Markov. A stingy and violent man. He bought it just for the hell of it. But I'm sure your blade came from elsewhere. So, let's start with that."

"I purchased it two years ago, on a job in Mongolia. A small grandmother sold it to me. All I did was touch it, and the next thing I knew, I was exchanging money for it. You touch, you buy. A law for foreigners in some places," I explained nonchalantly.

"I was hoping for something a little more spectacular… but okay. So, the origin has nothing to do with its oddities. Anyway, what makes the metal special is that its atomic structure is found in pyramids throughout the world. More importantly, it's also found in the soil of places considered to be vortexes or portals."

The professor rifled through papers and books as he spoke, never stopping.

"Portals to where?" I asked.

Venderbolt finally stopped, held up a book, and opened it to a well-worn page before handing it to me.

"The Henan meteorite is the largest known sample," Meredith said, watching me read. "That book explains how the pyramids used to have an outer shell—many, in fact. The metal in your blade, the Henan meteorite, has traces all over ancient pyramid sites. Until Henan, the metal was written off as sample corruption because nothing on this Earth matched it."

I looked up from the book. "Is this stuff about ley lines…"

The two of them smiled and nodded.

The professor began again. "Portals through time, different dimensions, or planets—no one really knows. The Bermuda Triangle is one you may have heard of. The current theory is that ancient civilizations created a planetary grid, providing free and infinite energy. At the same time, it formed a causeway for time-space travel—not just around the planet, but across the universe."

"These ley lines and places… are they mapped?"

"Yes," Meredith replied immediately. "I actually have the newest map. The professor gave me one to sway my decision earlier this year."

"And a waste of money it was," he scoffed.

"How about I take you two out tomorrow? Lunch is on me, and we can discuss the possibility of an active vortex today."

"Haha… I think I'll stop here," I said, gathering my things. "I'll have Yanna send you my contact information, and we can discuss payment for that fragment. Good day."

Once the door was shut, Professor Venderbolt sighed. Meredith tittered.

"Please let him know that the fragment was free. I don't need money, " said the Professor, "But if he is willing, we could use his sword as a magnet to find more."

"You think this is big? He has a specimen that matches one of Dr. Yi's primordial beasts," she said.

Vanderbolt's face contorted, "He's too close to the Mythic Era. We have to keep this away from Tejada. If the private sector—"

"I know, hoss," Meredith sang. "Backups were made, and the files will be gone before her lecture ends this morning."

Venderbolt's frown deepened. "Professor Tejada doesn't have a class today."

"We've never been this close. It may be time for us to leave this place, Mere."

"What about the moon rocks that the university has?" asked Meredith.

"They're shams. But Mr. Kaelix could be in danger. The sword alone makes him a target." Vanderbolt explained.