BOOK 3: DISCLOSURE / CH. 15:THE DIARIES
2.30 PM, SATURDAY AFTERNOON, 18TH NOVEMBER
On arriving at the institute, George had raided his larder and found plenty of pasta, a small tin of tuna and a few other things. After watching him look at the other ingredients blankly for almost a minute, Sarah had begged him to let her take over. Somehow she managed to stretch the tuna to make a delicious tuna sauce to go with the pasta. There were even left-overs.
“I thought that feeding the five thousand had gone out of fashion?” Pris joked.
“That was a miracle, this was just cooking.” Sarah said.
“That's what I thought to begin with. But you've just made a sauce for fourteen people out of a single tin of tuna.”
“I had a limited income as a student.” Sarah said. “I learned how to stretch things.”
“I kneel to your superior expertise,” Pris said, “or I would if I wasn't in this chair.”
John decided it was time to get to the point. “Jackie, Bella's told us about what she remembers, Sarah's had a dig around in Bella's memories, and I did too, and we found signs that her memories don't entirely correspond to her dreams, and that some of the dreams look like they're not from God but an entirely different source. We're hoping that your diaries have the original versions of the dreams, rather than the corrupted version.”
“You're taking Bella's dreams seriously then? Why?”
“Yes, we are. It started out that we were taking Sarah's vision very seriously, because I checked immediately after she had it and we know it came from God. Then it seemed that Bella had had a confirming dream, but it seems to me now that Sarah's vision was confirmation of Bella's dreams.”
“OK, well, here's the memory dump. I double checked, Bella had those dreams for about eight months before they stopped. It was a terrible time, I can tell you.”
“More like a year, Mum.” Bella corrected. “I just didn't tell you about the first few months. But they weren't as often then either.”
“I saw there were lots of dreams.” Sarah said, “That's why I asked John to help: there were too many for me to take them all in. What was it, one a night?”
“Oh that would have been nice.” Bella said. “I probably could have coped with one a night.”
“Sometimes it felt like one an hour.” Jackie said.
“Ouch.” Kate replied. “No wonder you sought help.”
“So, was it just different versions of one dream each night?”
“No. There was a sequence. It seemed to repeat.” Jackie remembered. "You'll see."
Sarah brought up the dream diary.
* Friday 1st Feb. Dream one: People on a space ship, in dispair, radioing for help. Dream two: People in a laboratory, staring at a screen in shock. Dream three: Devastated city. No bodies. Dream four: Arguing people on a space ship, someone fires a missile. Dream six: Devastated city, full of bodies.
* Sat 2nd Feb. Dream one: On a spaceship, people pulling on air masks. Dream two: Mission control, getting a distress call. Dream three: Valentine's day chocolate box, with a devastated city inside. Dream four: Arguing people in a laboratory, saying it's not their fault. Dream five: People fighting in a room with lots of dials and switches a big red button gets pressed. Dream six: Devastated city full of bodies.
* Sun, 3rd Feb: No dreams.
* Mon 4th Feb. Dream one: a missile landing and a mushroom cloud. Dream two: someone pours a bottle into a reservoir. Dream three: a christmas present opened with lots of bodies inside, but the city isn't ruined.
And so it went on.
“Was it always like that?” Karen asked.
“Always like what?”
“If there weren't any bodies in a dream, those came first?”
“Yes, I think so.” Jackie said.
“I think that's maybe significant.” Karen said.
“I agree.” Sarah said. “I saw a ruined city in my vision, with no bodies. I trust the source of that, so I think that the sequences that end with bodies, or a city which isn't ruined should probably be ignored.”
“And it's Valentine's day.” Teresa said, “Not Christmas.”
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“Very true.” agreed Sarah.
“Filters?” John guessed.
“Absolutely” Sarah agreed. “Lets see if those details help.”
Sarah instructed the computer to index each day's text based on presence of bodies and mentions of dates. While that was happening she set up the filter.
“Isn't that interesting?” Karen said, seeing a pattern.
“What?” asked Pris.
“Look at the dates. Two days in a row, skip five, two days in a row, skip five. Remind you of anything?”
“No scary dreams midweek?” Kate asked.
“No dreams which match our reliability criteria midweek.” Sarah corrected, “Plenty of scary rubbish mid-week,” Bella agreed “But nothing from God when I needed to be alert the next morning? That's... I don't know. Is that considerate or just wierd in the circumstances? Come to think of it, I do remember something saying something about the dreams I had at weekends not being so terrible. Do you remember me saying anything about that to you Mum?”
“Not really dear. About the timings, I think it's useful. It means we can get rid of a lot of dreams right from the start, and yet if there are any that don't match on those days we can look at them more closely.”
“Am I right that the reliable dreams always come in threes?” George asked.
“Well, that's a biblical number, but then so are most numbers.” Arwood said. “I certainly wouldn't want to say they have to.”
“Me neither.” Sarah said, looking at what might be a sequence of seven.
“Look at this set.”
“No ruined city at all that night.” Karen spotted.
“Just what I was thinking. So do we count all of them or none of them as reliable?”
“All as worth considering, I think.” Arwood said “Unless we see a contradiction with a dream we're fairly sure is reliable.”
“I'll see if the computer can merge them together.” Sarah said.
“Perhaps get it to score the different things as well, in terms of how often they come up?” George suggested.
“That sounds like a good idea. Actually, George, this pattern matching stuff is more your field than mine. Could you see what you can persuade the computer to do?”
“Of course, Sarah. I actually don't think it'll take long.”
George sat down at the terminal and pointed some of his subroutines at the dataset. He was sure that because they were already in groups, and quite terse, it wasn't going to be a hard job for the computer, once he'd set it all up. Of course setting it up always took longer than he hoped. Eventually he was happy with his approach, and commanded it to run.
The result came back quickly:
Reliable (>4 occurances).
* People on a spacecraft spot something, are worried, put on oxygen masks, and make a distress call.
* The distress call is picked up in mission control, they are concerned, call for help.
* An observatory is scanning the sky, there is something blocking the light from a star. There is a meeting. people there are worried, failing to agree.
* There is a dark something on the screen of the observatory.
* There is an office, people are staring at plots and numbers on monitors.
* Police are going through the city, shouting at people.
* The city is runined, there are no bodies, it is valentines day.
2 or 3 occurances:
* There is a broken spacecraft transmitting a distress call.
* There is a radar station on fire, with a crowd around it.
* There are convoys of vehicles leaving a city.
* There is a meteor shower over an enormous campsite.
1 occurance:
* There is a meeting with lots of people, asking about a dream.
* The king is listening to Bella and another woman.
* There is smoke from a power-station.
* A missile is launched, which goes off course and is commanded to self destruct.
* A missile is launched, which hits a small rock in space and is destroyed.
* There are people hiding in houses.
* A rock hits a tent.
* There are people crying at a funeral.
* There are people praying.
* People are going back to an undamaged city.
“Sarah?” Kate asked. “Thoughts? You're our resident almost-physicist.”
“My guess? We're facing something like a Tungasca event. There's a city that will need evacuating before Valentines day. There might be a tent city, there might be attempts to divert the asteroid or comet, but they don't work. Except, that last one... Bella, your dream about our meeting... can I have another look at it?”
“Sure, Sarah. If you like.”
Sarah focussed on Bella. She saw Bella's recent thoughts about the dream, and went behind them, saw the distorted versions, and ignored them too. Where was that original dream? There! She took in the details, and then sought peace instead. Some heat, but not very dangerous. She returned to normal for a bit.
[John, catch! {memory} {memory}] she thought, and flung him what she'd seen, and her initial assessment of it. [I'm going to rest a bit.]
Bella was a little worried that Sarah was slumped in her chair. “Is she all right?”
“Yes, she's just turned off part of her brain so she can cool down a bit.”
John said. “She'll be with us in a bit.”
“Oh. So we need to wait until she's cooled off?” Jackie asked.
“No, she told me what she saw. I think I agree with her analysis.”
“Well then, what is it?” Kate asked.
John flicked a glance at Arwood and Hannah. “Predestination and free will.”
Bella made a frustrated sound. “What is it? Come on John! What are you saying?”
“Bella, what do you remember anything about your original version of that dream?”
“I don't know if it's original, but I remember people asking me about my valentine's day dream, without touching, or speaking.”
“And?” John prompted.
“It was spooky, being asked questions like that. I didn't like it.”
“And so we didn't.” John added.
“OK, Now I'm all confused.” Jackie said “Are you saying that these dreams aren't true?”
“We asked Bella about her dream, but not the way she dreamt we'd ask. The dreams are warnings, not an exact representation of the future. Almost every valid set of dreams Bella had, ended with the city in ruins, but one didn't.”
“There's hope.” Arwood said. “There's hope, even if the best efforts of man fail, because this is God's Universe, and He's in charge.”
“If we do the right thing.” Tony said.
“I wish we knew which city it was.” Teresa said. “That way at least we'd know which country needed to be warned.”
Bella looked at them in surprise. “I thought you already knew. It's here, I'm fairly sure.”
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