Continuum

Stevo was very concerned over this telepathy problem for both of them! Mike was losing it! Stevo remembered that his subvocalizing with Mary R147 and others had been nothing like this.

People generally speak about a hundred words a minute. That is how communication works. Humans think their thoughts at about six hundred words per minute, providing their thoughts are in words, which most of them are. This new thing he and Mike were experiencing was completely different. Stevo was hearing his son's thoughts, not just his subvocalized words. He was seeing whole concepts and experiences at once, and it was most unsettling. Stevo understood his son's terror at this, and it was fast becoming his own!

As they both sat there on the metal floor in that alien place, it was if there was a fast building panic rising in them both. This was intensified because they both felt it in the other as they heard and sensed each other's thoughts.

"Stand up! We have to do something, and quickly!" Stevo spoke aloud to his son.

Mike, taking deep breaths, asked what could be done. Both of them were reeling from the onslaught of thought that freely poured from their minds. It was becoming difficult to distinguish which thought belonged to whom.

Carefully speaking aloud seemed to help their plight. "It is the nanocites, Son. We must go back to those closets by the park. You and I must begin moving that direction, and we have to try to control our breathing, and this overwhelming panic."

"Those places again? How do you know there isn't more to this city than just them?"

"I can see it all now, son. This building to the left is a communications unit. It is turned off now. That one over there is used for data storage. It is the same for all of these buildings except the one by the park which was a factory for all the things the beings like Mary required to be manufactured. We must go back there if we are to find her, or help her to be created again." Stevo broke away from Mike and began running toward the park.

"Pops, how did you know to touch those places on the buildings?" Mike was hurrying to catch up, amazed at his father's new found strength.

"I am stronger now, aren't I?" Stevo, surprised, stopped for a moment and quickly felt himself all over. You are right, I feel now more like I did twenty years ago. Amazing!"

"But how did you know about the city?" Mike asked again.

"I suddenly just knew what to do to turn on these places, so that the city is now operational again, and not only that, I had Nanocites in my hands to do the activation! I think the city wants to come to life! We can get the help we need here!"

"Is that allowed, Pops? I thought those beings like Mary were not allowed to live in our world again. None of this was to happen, except us meeting your Mary. You still haven't explained why we need her now."

"Mike, we do need Mary, not as before to protect the Continuum, or to preserve our civilization, but to help us find a way to destroy the Continuum so that we can save our world!"

Mike was so astonished at this statement that he stopped and dropped to his knees, sitting down at once. No one ever talked about the end of the Continuum. That was preposterous! How would Mankind do without it? Why did his father think it would it have to end? This idea was like utter nonsense to him. Is this really why his father had come here? Was that the real reason? Mike's thoughts recoiled from this thing.