The Mandela Effect

Chapter 61

Jon dropped his fork on an empty plate. It rattled slightly and slid to a halt. He looked up at T across the table from him.

The three men were sitting in a diner a short distance from C's house. He had recommended it. The place was a 50's style joint, with waitresses in teal aprons and an old, cranky guy in all white in the kitchen, occasionally making an appearance at the window to ring the order-up bell.

T was slowly stirring his coffee, looking down at the swirling liquid. C was leaning against the wall, with one knee pulled up on the bench, facing T but looking at Jon. They had both been silent for a minute or two.

Finally, C broke the silence, "quite a story."

"To say the least," T agreed.

"And," C added, "he's getting you into Bildaberg?"

"Yea," Jon answers, "I guess so. We'll see."

There's another moment of silence.

"Sat across the table from the Dauphin," C shook his head, "and lived to tell about it."

"I dunno about 'Dauphin'," Jon answers, "but I guess a legacy in some variety, and an heir."

"A Magus" C added, "or Magister at least though."

Jon looked at him confused.

"Obviously," C explained, "a fourth or fifth degree priest."

Jon continues to look at him. He still didn't understand.

"The Illuminati," C continues, "use the same hierarchy as the Church of Satan."

Jon nodded, understanding, "well, I didn't get the 'Illuminati' or 'Priest of Church of Satan' vibe."

"That's how they get you," C insisted.

"Maybe," Jon relented, "but he called it 'The Organization'."

"A known alias," C continues, "of the Iluminati."

"Right," Jon nodded and tried to bring T into the conversation, "you're being quiet."

T sighed and leaned back, "I trying to get my mind around it."

"The Organization?" Jon asks.

"Not really that," T waved off the idea, "I assume there are many secret organizations that are dominating my life, in one way or another. I grew up with Facebook, remember?"

Jon chuckles at the idea.

"The Machine though," T says, "I'm trying to understand how it works."

Jon slid his plate to the edge of the table and leaned forward on his elbows.

"Ok," Jon started going over what he learned, "well I think you weren't too far off; what you described to me at your place."

T added, "Right. I thinks so too."

"You call it 'The Rift'," Jon continues, "and they call it 'The Machine'. The guy laughs at your description, not like laughs because it was so far off; but laughs because you were so close. He thinks rift gave an image of magic, but it is all technology; at least, it's pure technology now."

"But, before World War 2, it was basically magic," Jon continues, "he described it as more akin to a mantle plume, like Hawaii. Only, the plume stays put and the plate moves over it; the rift is what's moving, but no one knows how or why."

"According to him," Jon recounted, "the rift itself glows red. If you look through it, you would often see the back of your own head. Like a mirror, only from behind you. I guess, more like a screen connected to a camera set up behind you. If you went into the rift, before the machine was built around it, in most cases, as you stepped through, the you inside would be stepping into the rift as well. Once inside, if you turned around, you'd see the world you just left, only in a blue glow, not a red one. But ahead of you is once again the red glow."

"So freaky," C shook his head.

"Apparently, you could then turn and go back through the blueglow rift, but only until you reached your home timeline where the bluerift would disappear. But at some point, someone decided to not step through, and instead, a 'them' appeared in the room... or cave or whatever. They talked to the 'other' them about the world and realized there were subtle things that were different. This helped them give each other advice to get the best results for each. Eventually, whole groups would meet and discuss the differences, and then just disperse through their timelines. Maybe two of them step-through from timeline C together into timeline B. Then, one of them disappears into thin air over to A. Because both B and A could see the rift to B, but only A could see the next rift into A."

"I think this broke my brain," T says, leaning over and putting his forehead on the table.

Jon paused while the waitress arrived to take the plate. Jon motioned for the check as well.

"Skip forward a few thousand years," Jon continues, "the rift has moved around. Wars are fought by those who lost in and those who found it. You can trace the power of the west from Egypt to the north and west as the rift skips around from here to there."

"What about the Indus River," T asks, "or China, or South America?"

"I asked the same thing," Jon chuckles, "and they don't know. Lost forever? But his personal theory was that the struggle for the Near East; like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir; is probably related. Or, it could be that the Eastern rifts are all in Russia now and lost."

"And the Americas?" C asks.

"Well," Jon answers, "again according to him, if you traced the same path at all the rifts, its drowned under the Pacific Ocean now, waiting for another landfall."

"That makes sense," T says, banging his head on the table, "it shouldn't but it does."

"So," Jon continues, ignoring T, "Hitler hears about a 'rift', but they don't call it that, in the Alps growing up in Linz. After taking power, he first moves south and west trying to find it. He does and they start to study it. Then it moves, so he follows and locates it in Holland. Cut to Normandy invasion, but the Nazis almost refuse to give up Holland, against all loses for inexplicable reasons. The Allies find the rift and the rest is history."

"It's all history," C interjected, "isn't it?"

Jon laughs, "I suppose it is. But, rich guys re-building Europe isolate its power. They pick up where the Nazis left off in studying it. By the 1950s, they have trapped the rift in a machine and it no longer jumps. And the machine continually improves, now with computers and AI, to identify differences in the timelines and present them to The Organization."

"And then they use the machine to jump," T half-asks.

"Yea," Jon shrugs, "like moving the entire timeline, this entire timeline, to that timeline and overwriting it. But the past is maintained so the future is as well. At least, in the short term."

T starts banging his head on the table again. Jon looks up at the waitress but waves off her concern.

"You gotta stop that man," Jon says to T, "you're drawing attention."

"Sorry," T apologizes, "it's so simple and makes so much sense. Then, you hit this wall and its so far beyond comprehension. But, not really. It's believable and seemingly understandable, but also uncompromisingly complex."

"It's nuclear bombs," Jon agrees, "Everyone knows we split at atom. Some people might know about firing a cesium pellet at uranium or collapsing a plutonium core. A group of people... know more than that. More than me clearly. But a chosen few can show you the math, and do the math legitimately."

"THAT!" T says sitting up, "it's exactly that."

"Let's get some air," Jon says, "before someone calls the men in white coats. I'll meet you guys outside."

Jon slid out of the booth and moved towards the cash register to pay. C gave T a shove. He almost fell into the floor, but caught himself and stands up. C slid out after him. The two of them moved towards the door with T muttering to himself.