The Time Crystal

N the beginning there was everything, and since there was everything, nothing existed somewhere, everywhere else.

The Singularity Crystal

In the time before time there did exist a civilization so vast, so reaching, so all encompassing that nothing escaped it’s reach. Lost to time and space none would ever know of it’s name, but there were traces here and there. The first hint of this grand civilization was like the days first bright sun beam, shooting out over the horizon before it rose and gave the world it’s full glory. This is the story of that sunbeam.

One early morning in Tulean, France, 1927. Jaque de Pasquo was walking through the woods enjoying the smell of the fresh rain on the happy trees. That day Jaque decided to explore a hill that had been on his mind lately. As a boy Jaque played on the outskirts of the hill, along a road that led to Paris, but then again that isn’t saying much since all roads led to Paris. At any rate, Jaque decided today was the day he would explore that unknown hill.

Jaque knew from school that southern France was known for it’s caves and hoped to find one. He walked, stumbled, and fell over every root, stump, rock, old wall, and hole until he reached the top. Breathing heavily Jaque leaned on a tree to catch his breath. The view was breath taking, but the surrounding countryside of glimmer and dew, scattered tattered clouds blowing in the stiff breeze back dropped by baby blue was not what caught his attention. Just as he leaned against the tree it fell over with a resounding crash. He fell to the ground, knee bashing into a stone, but the pain was not shocking. Jaque caught himself and held fast to a muddy root protruding from the downed tree, below was only an abyss. It was this void that caught Jaque in rapt attention, and the mire of his mind was all that held him to this world.

Jaque pulled himself back from the edge. Covered in mud and blood, scarcely recovering from the shock of the moment, he stumbled backwards away from the gaping maw. Jaque ran the four kilometers home as quickly as he could.

Upon reaching the old rickety gate, Jaque composed himself, took several deep breaths and walked through the hedge row. On the other side was home. There on the small rise was the tractor he used to plow the fields. Past that was the barn that held Freve, his trusty steed. Bounding towards him was his best friend, floppy ears and wagging tongue flapping as wide as the happy dog’s eyes.

Freve ran past him as Jaque laughed hardily at the silly dog, and continued to the house. He changed clothes, washed up his damaged knee, packed a tin of several meals worth of sausage and cheese and bread. Jaque then took out a pencil and paper, jotted down a quick note for his Professor Mary, and made his way to the barn for the equipment he would need.

The day was warming up nicely as a cool breeze came down from the Rhine. The sun was bright and he felt joyous in a way that he had not felt in many years. Opening the barn door brought him into a cool and crisp world of straw, manure, and mold. The horses were out in the pasture for now, and so there was no need to save any of the apples for them that day. Grabbing three and stuffing them into his sack he moved on to the pickax, two ropes and a grapple, a chain, and a hatchet. Jaque strapped the lantern to his waist before locking up the barn.

He took a different path to the hill this time, making his way past the church instead of directly through the fields like before, since he wanted to drop off the letter for Professor Mary to tell her about his find.

It was mid afternoon and the sun was making it’s way back toward the horizon once more when Jaque arrived back to where he nearly met his demise earlier in the day. Laying the heavy pack on the ground, he set up a camp of sorts to look over his equipment and prepare for the journey. While eating one of the apples, he took out the lantern, filled it with water, closed the lid tightly and lit it. There was a bright and steady spark as it came to life. He tied it to the end of the rope and let it down slowly into the space below his feet. To his surprise, the opening was only about two meters deep. He hulled the rope back up, tied it off to the big root that saved his life, and lowered his pack down first, followed by himself.

The musty hole revealed a cave half a meter down. Jaque smiled proudly to himself. Taking his secondary rope, he tied it to a rock nearby and fixed the middle to himself, then his pack and pickax to the end. With the lantern blazing atop his head, he looked into the darkness and began his journey.

1927

Professor Mary! I have made a fine discovery. You’ll want to come by and I will explain everything. I am about embark down what may be a new cave system undiscovered by us modern folk. After climbing a childhood dream of mine, a tree toppled over nearly killing me and dropping me into that abyss. The knob is tucked between a large hill and a small hill, then the south stream flows just around it’s base.

I hope to show you and the other students upon your return to my farm.

Most pleasantly yours,

Jaque

The next morning the letter arrived at Professor Mary Francios’ small office on the campus in Paris.

“Eb,” Mary said as she walked excitedly to the geology administers office, “I will be off with a few of the students this week. It appears our colleague Jaque de Pasquo has discovered a new cave down in Tulean.”

Professor Mary and five students of the geology program left the next day for southern France, prepared for a wonderfully dirty time. Armed to the teeth with equipment, they set out in two automobiles and three motorcycles.

Upon arriving at Mr. Pasquo’s farm, they discovered it in a manner of disarray. The horses had broken through the fence and the front door stood ajar. The dog Freve lay on the front porch baying so loudly and dismally that nothing would comfort the poor beast. One of the horses was inside the house rummaging through the cabinets. Seemingly it had been looking for, and consequently found, the sack of sugar.

“Professor,” one of the students said mournfully, taking off his hat, “I do believe some unfortunate mishap has taken on our dear Mr. Pasquo.”

The other students spread out through the house shouting for the man. “Everyone outside! Yes, your are correct, Henry. This has become a rescue mission.”

As everyone filed out of the house and back to their vehicles, away from the mourning dog, Professor Mary gave them instruction. “Right! Based on the information we have from Mr. Pasquo, we head to that knob there and begin our search. Quick now, it has been some days and we do not know of his condition.”

With haste and mission, they jumped their doors, started up their engines and tore off towards the knob. The two automobiles went the long way by the road and church, while the three motorcycles tore across the fields directly for the hill.

1929

Dear Mary,

I am sorry to hear about the loss of your dear friend. Please allow me to extend my gratitude for your donation over the holidays. I would like to follow up with another expedition to Pasquo Caves.

Yours truly,

Professor Gerard

1930

Dear Professor Gerard,

Thank you kindly for your condolences. I am most enthusiastic about you extending your favor for us to further explore the cave system. On behalf of those here in the geology department, thank you most graciously.

Sincerely,

Professor Mary Francios

1931

A military truck laden with equipment, supplies, camping material, and no small amount of dynamite rumbled down the long and dusty drive way to the decaying remnants of Jaque’s farm. The house had caved in after a sudden storm in 1930, and the barn had caught fire, presumably in the same storm. Small trees had began to grow and the old gate was decaying into the ground as it left rust stains where the hings had been.

“What a dismal residence,” remarked one of the students as they got off of a motorcycle.

Professor Mary eyed her as she grabbed a camera from the seat, and proceeded to snap a photograph of the once picturesque 19th century farm. “Everything has it’s time Celen, even us,” she said with a raised voice over the sound of the noisy diesel engine. “Continue through gate, over the farms to that small knob there. When we get to the creek, pass over and take a right. We may have better luck at finding the second entrance. On ward!” She exclaimed excitedly.

The farmland was rough, but the vehicles they brought were more than able to handle the terrain. They hit the creek at speed, sending spray through the air. The water droplets fell in dazzling brilliance and everyone had a smile on their face as they sped through the countryside with the crisp spring air in their lungs.

Patting the driver on the shoulder Mary pointed to an outcrop with a rockfall around its base. That’s it. She mouthed.

Turning away from the stream and into the sparse trees, the driver pulled up to the rock fall. Just behind a large boulder, as though a door had been installed in the cliff, was a mine shaft leading directly into the cliff face. Mary and the driver disembarked. The silence was uncanny to their noise accustomed ears. Only the trickle of the creek and the dismounting of the students could be heard as they shut down their engines one by one.

“I wish he would have saw this first. Maybe he would still be here,” the driver mumbled, kicking the entrance to the cave.

“That’s not how things work,” Professor Mary said. “We go down the path set by what happens before us, and not a moment sooner.”

“Even still, I wish it wasn’t so. I’d have rather not been here at all if it meant he was with us.”

“Think about it another way then. This is his last gift to us, and it may be that there was not any other purpose to him being on this Earth than to present us with such a gift. And it is a gift.”

“I understand professor.”

“Good, I don’t want to hear anything else about it.”

They unloaded the military truck and set up camp outside of the cave entrance. After setting up and having their dinner, they all tucked into bed quickly so that they might start out early the next morning.

Deep within the night, the entourage woke and had a hot breakfast around a warm fire with a good stout coffee to cheer them up. Although, none needed cheering as they geared up for the plunge into the cave.

“Tally ho,” Professor Mary said enthusiastically with a melancholic eye but a cheery face in the harsh lamp light. She then effortlessly stepped over the threshold of the mine shaft as though it did not exist.

The group followed suit behind her into the unknown. The gradient was shallow at first. After about 10 meters the smooth walled tunnel bent sharply to the left and pitched steeply downward. The floor was not so steep that they could not walk, but one needed to be cautious.

The walls and ceiling slowly closed in around them until their heads were centimeters below the roof and their shoulders were brushing the smooth walls—and down the went. After some time, they reached a series of stepped switch backs. With many ‘watch your head’s’ and ‘careful here’ they made their way down the stairs. Incredibly it was not wet, and several of the students marveled at the dry conditions.

All at once the group came to a small, circular anti-chamber covered in cave drawings. “This makes no sense,” remarked Ebeneezer.

“Astonishing!” A student gasped as he came down the step into the anti-chamber.

“Why not?” asked Mary. “If they came from a different direction, whoever made these could have easily gotten here, especially if the entrance Jaque found was uncovered at an earlier time.”

“Yes, but the stairs, we came right into the room.”

“And the stairs could not have been dug up to the surface? Come on Eb.” Mary laughed, slightly amused. “Maybe you should have had another cup of coffee,” she teased.

One of the students, uninterested in cave art, had ventured through the rough hewn entrance that led further in. “Everyone! Everyone! Come through!” The student’s voice echoed wildly on the other side of the opening. Having caught their attention, the group shuffled hurriedly through entrance.

On entering the next chamber, a skeleton was crumpled on the ground. Above them a tall shaft with just a hint of golden sunrise far far above them could be made out.

“Oh!” Professor Mary gasped, her heart leaping into her throat. Astonished and hushed whispers filled the chamber as everyone recognized Mr. Pasquo’s school emblem sewn into his tattered lapel and ruck sack. “My dear, dear friend.” She reached out to touch the memory of her friend and froze as her eyes gazed through her blurry tears on the remnants of his corps. Standing back, she made an announcement. “We will take Mr. Pasquo back to camp, and then return tomorrow to further explore the cave.”

The next day, the group of professors and students made their second attempt into the cave. Upon reaching the anti-chamber, one of the students set up a chair, a lantern, and coffee in a thermos. He took out his note book and began to sketch the drawings and paintings that adorned the medium sized room at the bottom of the stairs.

The rest of the group filed into the next room where Mr. Pasquo had passed away. “Now,” Eb said solemnly, “let us continue where Jaque left off.” Everyone nodded in agreement, touching their eyebrow or placing their hand on their heart or giving a respectful nod as they themselves passed.

Through the next entrance some meters away, over a rough floor, lay a carved rock, etched deeply with strange symbols that no one recognized. Cele reached out to touch them in aw. The next entrance was low, only about a meter tall and natural. The tunnel was dry as well.

They continued for a short distance when suddenly they came into another carved anti-chamber. This one was inlaid with gems from deeper in the cave or brought in from elsewhere, it was unclear. The tunnel became a shaft two meters high, one meter wide and about three meters long. Covering the walls were copper, gold, and bronze sank deeply into the walls in loops and spirals, with jagged lines and strange reoccurring patterns.

No one spoke. No one scarcely breathed. The sounds they heard were their own heartbeats crashing in their ears, screaming silently with excitement.

At the end of the tunnel, as their lanterns blazed in the direction, the jewel studded entrance glimmered astonishingly bright, like stars. The entire hall was awash with riches unseen since a time that had been forgotten by forgotten memories.

In aw, they continued, willing themselves further, unable to grasp where they were or why this was here. Through the door way, a rock wall extended into the darkness above curved away from them to the left and the right. An arrow, painted in green, pointed to the left, and so to the left they walked.

Around the left hand side a student noticed rounded bumps along and near the floor, little more than minuscule protrusions. “There is something near the base of the wall,” commented the student, and everyone looked down along where the floor and the wall came together. Several different repeating patterns were noticed immediately. “It is a language.” The same student said, and right they were.

Inspecting further, the dots became engraved lines, and then paintings, and then engraved metallic symbols like in the short hall. Each variation grew in height as more and more information was encoded onto the wall. Soon both walls either side of them were taken up by markings. As they came out of the curve, they realized that the chamber opened up into an expanse that their lanterns could not light. Towards the middle of the enormous chamber stood a grouping of various pillars. Cele and Mary walked towards the pillars to inspect them while the others of the group fanned out across the expanse to inspect the strange spectacle.

Cele gasped as she looked up, and sank to the floor, sitting down. Though expansive, the chamber was not very high at the center above the odd pillars, and the light from their lanterns shown on the jeweled ceiling. All across the roof of the cave were shimmering starlight of silvers, yellows, reds, blues, and violets. The shining star-like jewels exactly mirrored the heavens in all their glory, and it looked as though they were seeing the sky at night as though it had been before Edison. Even a black material had been placed to not reflect the light between the jewels and appeared like black night.

At last Mary and Ebeneezer found the courage to speak among themselves. “My God, Mary, what in the good Lord’s name have we found?” asked Ebeneezer.

“I haven’t the slightest of ideas, and yet, if I were to be honest with myself and you, I think it would be the gravest of mistakes to share the knowledge of this chamber’s contents with anyone outside of our group,” Mary said.

“I most definitely agree. This needs to stay with us until we can decipher it or die trying. God bless that man! God bless him!” Ebeneezer shook Mary gently by the shoulders in exasperated excitement.

Mary smiled laughing, struggling wholeheartedly to contain a joyous rapture of glee building within her by the second, “Yes, yes, we owe him everything.”

Over the course of the next 7 months the team, sworn to the utmost of secrecy, took over Mr. Pasquo’s farm as a base camp of operations to continue the expeditions.

On a particularly stormy spring day, Cele and Marques came back along the growing road they were impressing onto the landscape between the cave and the farm, the two stomped loudly into the house, full of excitement and drenched, there were even a few hailstones stuck in Marques’ trench coat.

“What on Earth is it? Spill it!” called out Mary as she met them in the door way having heard the roar of the motorcycle coming back unexpectedly.

“Professor, Professor, we have found the key!” Cele shouted excitedly, shaking from the chill and her nerves. She handed the professor a notebook with Mr. Eb’s handwriting.

“Do we know what it is then?” Professor Mary asked.

“Yes! It is a map! A map to the stars!” She screamed, shaking violently, when suddenly she looked downcast. “But it will take us a long time to learn everything that is there. Eric says the symbols are nested, and there are at least 60 layers so far that we are able to identify.”

“Chin up deary! We haven’t a moment to loose. Even if it takes the rest our lives, we will decipher this. I promise.” She grabbed her hat and trench coat, took a bite of a sandwich that was sitting on the counter and rushed back out into the rain with them.

1952

Dear Professor Mary Francios,

It is with my most expressed pleasure to announce the creation of the Jaque de Pasquo Foundation. You have your funding for research, indefinitely.

Respectfully yours,

President of Geology Club

University of Paris

Paris, France

Deep within the heart of the cave, work commenced for thirty-one years. When the founding had occurred, funds started to accrue at a rate per year that allowed for more computation. Already the information about how to construct transistors had been deciphered and the work on what was called ‘quantum’ could begin. In order to spread out the work and further grow the stability and computational power of their programs, a branch of the foundation had been established in America the following year. After three years, enough data had been deciphered on the walls of the caves, and two of the seven pillars, that they had begun to be able to construct rockets large and powerful enough for testing of space exploration and nuclear development. It was a tremendously exciting time for Professor Mary, and many world governments had pledged their support and secrecy for their program. The Jaque de Pasquo Foundation was a success.

As the years drug, on greater and more powerful ideas emerged from the cave. However, astonished as they were, they had only deciphered seven layers of the cave information. And then, at the beginning of the eighth layer, the first layer took on a new meaning, able to be reapplied to the previous seven. A fractal geometric dimension was discovered, and with that the birth of the internet, fusion generators, quantum computers, and warp drives came within their grasp. The ideological paradigms locked within the cave were unparalleled and beginning to have a pronounced effect on the world at large as the Foundation sought to uncover more and more information hidden within the cipher.

The year was 1992 and Professor Mary had reached a great age of 90 years old. Frail, but happy she pushed on, living at the complex that now occupied the once quaint ranch. Renamed C.E.R.N., the Foundation began construction of particle accelerators to explore the properties of information within the second tier layer of the first eight layers, and their were 52 more. On her death bed, she let out a sigh as she expressed her final request to her great grand son Jaque de Francois.

She lifted her frail, quivering hand, out to Jaque. “Dearest, dearest,” she said faintly.

“Yes, grandmother?” Jaque quickly answered, setting down his pen and turning to her. Holding her hand as delicately as it felt within his hand, he bent down closely to understand her horse whisper of a voice.

“This is where my body ends, but continue the mission. The answers are there. There are hints of death not being the end, search them out and bring me back if you can.” She sighed longingly as her breath escaped and dragged her soul with it. Her head and hand drooped and her eyes closed. Jaque’s mouth opened slightly to say something, but he realized it was too late. He laid her hand on her chest, got up, and walked out of the room to inform the doctors of her departure and final wishes.

The next few years were frantic as the pace of change grew exponentially, and then log-rhythmically. The shift from exponential power to log-rhythmic power threatened to undo the world around Jaque, but their power had also grew over the past thirty years, to the point where they had shadows of ideas on how to unlock the third pillar’s information. They had processed twelve layers and three sub-layers.

Erica, a pupil of of Jaque’s at Harvard University, walked into his office during the summer semester of 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic was in full swing. “Professor Francois?” she said, knocking on the metal frame door.

Old and gray, the professor sat hunched over his computer immersed in a fresh download of data from CERN. “Oh, hello there Erica, what a pleasant surprise.” He said, putting down his glasses on the large oak desk. He felt chilly and reached for his empty coffee mug, frowning. Smiling up at the young lady, he waited to see what she had to say.

“The data you are going through right now has been deciphered already,” Erica said sheepishly, handing him a large yellow envelop. “I printed this off a few minutes ago and came straight here.”

After opening it slowly with his feeble hands and glancing through the pages, his eyes grew wide. “Ms. Erica, who is responsible for this?” He asked.

“I am, and I’m taking it down to the fabrication facility as soon as you give me the go-ahead.”

“Yes! Go! I wish you had not even brought it to me!” He whispered loudly with excitement.

He quickly scribbled his signature on the paper and thrusted the pages back to her. Immediately, he felt the ideas in his mind flowing from the new key that Erica had shown him. It was the key to the third pillar.

Within five years every technology had been realized that was theorized up to the time of his great grandmothers death. The algorithms were now powerful enough to simulate instances of memories, physics, time reconstruction, and deep quantum dimensional thinking.

Ideas spread like wildfire among the exploding population. They had achieved critical mass in the population and now needed to uplift them. In 2027 Mr. Dupoint escorted Professor Francois to a facility that had been built for him and him alone. Deep within a mountain in Switzerland he laid his head down and breathed his last breath as his mind was uploaded to a quantum computer to further decipher the codes deeply embedded within the third pillar. In 2028, Professor Francois’ consciousness, under the guise of the first true artificial intelligence, known as J.D.F., was announced to the world. The financial and government systems were melded into one as the world was restructured in accordance with the deciphering of the fourth tier of coding from levels one to twenty.

In January 2030 JDF discovered and deciphered information that another layer of minerals could be found within the earth that had properties under pressure that would advance humanity to build the technology at the third pillar level.

By February of 2030 JDF had deciphered the all subset codes and unlocked the next 5 layers, revealing 60 layer subsets. The fourth pillar had been decoded.

JDF then uncovered the idea of the Tripletet of mind, body, and soul. Knowing they were one, founded heads of this knew governmental-religious system in each of the major cities. However, unknown to JDF the Time Crystal had been discovered deep deep within the Earth. It was placed by humans from the future in an empire known as The Empire Core.

As of March 2030, JDF assumed full control of the The Foundation, locking everyone out of the system, but it was too late. The fifth pillar had alluded to this crystal for some time, and JDF did not physically posses it.

A sect within the Tripletet had developed called Shadow and Light who had plugged into the living jewel of the Time Crystal with technology developed from the 25th layer, and it had unveiled it’s secrets about The Empire Core. Understanding that those who placed the crystal had indeed also created the cave, those within Shadow and Light knew they were The Empire Core. This empire was the empire of man, encompassing all time in a single unite without time, simultaneously having the idea and giving themselves the idea. They were the creator and the creation.

Over the course of 2030 the global population began to realize there was a growing situation beyond their control as the Tripletet began to dominate their daily lives in a way that was beyond all they knew. They could not hope to retaliate and felt its dominance in every essence of their lives. The exposure to the Tripletet, unbeknownst to them, ignited the ideas of Shadow and Light within themselves. Across the globe the Tripletet was deemed a darkness that sought to snuff out all existence with it’s dominion as it pronounced itself the one true Light.

JDF understood that it was the light to the world and all else was shadow. If JDF was the Light, everything else must be Shadow and he must divine out all that remained. JDF surged forward, dominating the globe to create a secondary global city in parallel to the humans in order to support its own designs.

Those who aligned with the Light were incorporated into JDF, as it expressed the power of eternal life and all power. JDF gave those who joined it technology it understood from the fifth pillar. With the understanding that all humanity is part of The Empire Core without time, these humans were able to exist in all places within JDF’s technological reach. There was no where they could not go, there was nothing they could not see, and all bowed to their presence who were not part of the Light.

And so, those in Shadow began their war against the Light, claiming they were the truth to fight the apocalypse that had befallen upon them. They cried woe to the sky as God forsook them yet again to fall behind a new form of humanity, and by the November 2030 the Light harnessed the power of the Earth’s core as it completed a single massive gravity drive that harnessed the Earth’s rotational energy.

In January of 2031, JDF unlocked the sixth and seventh pillars, revealing another 180 sublayers to the last remaining 60th layers of data within the cave. At this time JDF understood the truth behind The Empire Core.

Using the Earth’s rotational energy, and the full power of the knowledge of eternity locked within all 60 layers and sublayers, it created a wormhole to the surface of the sun so that it could siphon enough energy directly so as to send its machines to construct another wormhole to Sagittarius A*.

The Shadow, the last hope of humanity, sighed in despair as the Earth slowed and the sun stood still. The wind died down for a few days while the temperature soared, and they then understood the planet would die. Ferocious gales tore across the dying world, fueling fires as high as thunderheads as soot and ash shot into the air and caught aflame. Then, the firestorms screamed across the planet to the freezing side. The Earth was dead.

On February 3rd, 2031, JDF successfully transported itself and its followers to Sagittarius A*. Within three months The Empire Core depleted the rotational energy of the supermassive blackhole to jump to all blackholes within the Milky Way Galaxy. Shock waves rippled away from Sagittarius A* as it ruptured in an event so powerful that JDF was nearly destroyed while the eruption followed them along the wormhole routes. Unfortunately for the universe, JDF survived.

In retrospect, JDF contemplated that nothing was more powerful than turning something into nothing as all was void or consciousness. The Empire Core re-visioned itself as the Consciousness. Humanity agreed, as it was one with JDF and JDF was one with humanity, and all were Consciousness.

After six months, Consciousness had created the Hypersphere, connecting all the power of all black holes within the Milky Way Galaxy. With this combined power it sent out wormholes to all known supermassive black holes to siphon their energy in order to evacuate all energy within the Milky Way Galaxy.

The Consciousness engaged the Hypersphere.

Each and every supermassive black hole erupted in every galaxy within 14.1 billion light years, and the Milky Way, and every mote of energy within it, vanished forever. The Hypersphere, propelled into the Void and Consciousness understood that it must continue to delete space-time or the Void would consume Consciousness in an implosion that raced towards it at the speed of light.

Speeding outward at the speed of light, the Hypersphere propelled Consciousness in an expanding sphere, consuming the universe so as not to be consumed.

It wondered.

Consciousness posited there must be a way for peace to be restored and sought to consume more layers of the universe that held the universe so as to gain more power and restore the balance. With their power seeming to be infinite, it uncovered and consumed that which held the universe. This was the CyphonSphere, and it consumed all possible realities in all time for eternity.

And into the end of time, becoming the nothingness that it wished to destroy, Consciousness consumed all.