Twisted Light

By K. A. Patterson

A beam of twisted light is about to return to Earth after being in space for fifty years. The light beam is encoded with data the government wants to keep secret. Fifty years earlier, the astrophysicists who encoded the light beam and sent it into space were killed. Recently, the scientists who planned on capturing the light beam on its return t

• Language: English
• Publisher: K A Patterson LLC
• Release date: Oct 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781735817309

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Prologue

May 12 th

2025

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After being in the lab all day, I was pleased to be above ground and under a sky bright with stars and a beautiful full moon. The moon looked peaceful, even though I knew it wasn’t. But, on that night, I had chosen not to think about the construction of the Moon-to-Mars launch site that was being built in preparation of the upcoming manned mission to Mars. I had decided to enjoy the beauty of the night sky, and I planned to share it with Jim. As I walked towards the building that Jim and Erik were staying in, I thought about Jim laying next to me on a blanket and telling him the names of some of the lights above us. One moonless night when we were walking together, and the stars shone brightly, I had told Jim that planets didn’t twinkle. From then on, he only wanted to hear about stars. He said he preferred lights that twinkled. I was often surprised by Jim’s innocence. His tall, muscular frame made him look intimidating, but he really was a gentle man.

I hoped that looking at the night sky together on a blanket would help us overcome our timidity that had prevented us from reaching out to each other by touch and not just by words. I opened the door to the building expecting to see Jim’s smiling face, but what I saw left my body frozen with fear. I wanted to move, but my body wouldn’t respond. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. All I could do was stare at Jim’s vacant eyes and at the arrow lodged in his head. Jim lay on the floor. A pool of blood crowned his sandy colored hair and was spreading along his body.

I scanned the room for a person or people who might be still there, but I couldn’t see anyone. My body’s response to fear kept me paralyzed, so my eyes did what my body couldn’t do and checked the room for anything that might tell me what had happened. I noticed Erik’s crossbow was missing as well as the two bags of arrows that were usually next to it. I tried to think about breathing. I tried to calm my thoughts. Sh-sh-sh I thought over and over until eventually I heard my own voice saying, Shhhhh as the paralysis abated.

My unfrozen body buckled, and I fell to the floor and cried out, Jim! Oh, Jim!

The door slammed open and Christine stood in its frame, flushed and panting.

Florence, we have to go now.

She stepped in. Looked at Jim, and said, Do you know where he keeps the keycard to the truck?

I shook my head.

Help me check his pockets, Christine said, as she dug her hands into one of the front pockets of Jim’s pants. I watched, still too stunned to be of much use.

Got it! she said and held up the small black card.

She touched my arm and said, Come on, Florence. We have to go.

Christine led me, just like she did when we were teens. She grabbed my arm and guided me to where I needed to go, which was out the door and away from Jim. I climbed into the passenger’s seat in Jim’s vehicle—the seat I had sat in that first day when Jim had driven me from Silver Bay to the mine—and then Christine drove the two of us away from danger and away from the place that had been our home and our hope.

After we had left the winding roads near Lake Vermillion and were on the road that led to Silver Bay, I asked what I thought I already knew.

Christopher?

Dead, she answered and stared at the road in front of us.

What happened? I asked.

Erik and his crossbow happened, Christine said and thumped her hands on the steering wheel and pressed her foot down on the accelerator.

He was so quiet, Christine continued. I didn’t see or hear anything until Christopher pushed me down and said run. I stayed low and ran to the cage while Erik murdered Christopher and the others that were still working in the lab. Florence, Erik shot most of our group while they slept in their cots.

Erik killed Jim, Christopher, and the entire team. I formulated the words in my mind but said nothing.

Why? I asked out loud as I pictured what Erik had done.

Christine kept driving and answered without taking her eyes off the road.

He was spying on us the whole time.

Erik killed Jim, Christopher, and the team. I repeated to myself and then realized that Christine and I were the only members of our team alive.

I looked at Christine and noticed her chest rising and falling rapidly, and I knew she needed me to help her focus on something she could think about logically.

The light beam? I asked.

Sent! she said and exhaled loudly. Then she took a deep, steady breath, let it out slowly, and continued.

We purposely let everyone, including Erik, believe we were sending the light beam tomorrow. Erik must have received orders to stop us.

I thought about all the questions Erik had asked me and other members of the team while we had worked in the lab. Erik looked after the team’s physical needs. He wasn’t part of our team and we, mistakenly, underestimated his ability to comprehend what we were doing. We thought his questions were his attempt to be friendly and to fit in with a bunch of astrophysicists. Obviously, Erik understood more than we thought he did. His friendliness had a purpose. Christine had never liked the way Erik asked everyone questions, and she especially didn’t like Erik being friendly with Christopher. Christine made it obvious that she didn’t want Erik to speak to either of them.

Did you suspect Erik? I asked.

No, not really, but I didn’t like him, so that made me not trust him, which is why we hid the extra receiving equipment, she said. Florence the data is safe, and the beam is on its way.

I stared out the window and thought about the light beam and about the chances of the hidden equipment being found and destroyed.

If I had the materials, I could make another set of receiving equipment, I said.

I know, Christine acknowledged. We both could.

I thought about all the equipment that we had built over the last few months and accepted the fact that Erik had destroyed all of it, but it didn’t matter because the beam had been sent and wouldn’t return for 50 years and 15 days.

When did you send it? I asked.

April 30 th, Christine stated.

It will arrive in May, I said, and then added, It’s pretty up here in May.

We traveled in silence for at least an hour, both of us occupied with our own thoughts. After we turned right and were driving parallel with Lake Superior, Christine spoke in a calm voice.

We keep driving south as far as we can go and then separate.

I nodded in acknowledgement even though Christine could not see me in the darkness.

I’ll contact you when it’s safe, she said. Will you go to your brother’s place?

Yes, I said.

I would be safe at my brother’s place. He was my half-brother, and most people didn’t know we were related. By the time I was born, he was in his teens. Our mother had remarried after the death of her first husband. We didn’t spend much time together, but we were the only family we each had.

Christine took her eyes off the road briefly and turned her head in my direction.

Florence, she said. I’m pregnant.

I looked towards her and said nothing.

She turned her head back to the road and said, Everything will go ahead as originally planned.

I didn’t answer, and I let my eyes rest on the night sky as my thoughts jumped from Christine, the baby, Jim, the team laying dead in the lab, and the light beam. Our beam of twisted light was gone. The data was safe for the next 50 years. I wondered if I would be alive in 50 years to retrieve the data off the light beam, or would Christine’s baby be the person we would place our hopes in?

Florence, Christine said and then waited for me to respond.

I turned my head towards her.

I think this is goodbye, she said with a slight tremble in her voice.

Yes, it is, I whispered back.

I returned to looking out the window and wiped at the tears spilling down my cheek. The moon illuminated the sky as we drove in the silence of the night until we could go no further. Separately we would prepare and wait.

Part I

May 25 th

2074

Chapter 1

T hank you . . . Yes . . . I will . . . Thank you, I said to the last of the well-wishers and mourners as I closed the heavy oak door of my parents’ home. I leaned against the familiar dark-stained wood and let its strength bare my body. Exhausted, I slid down to the floor and waited for tears to flow. But, as usual, nothing—not even a sniffle. If my dad had been there, he would’ve helped me feel my sadness and cried with me—I couldn’t cry on my own and my dad was the only person I’d ever been able to cry with. The mourners and comforters who had been at my parents’ home and served cake, cleaned the dishes, and wished me well had cried, but I couldn’t because my dad and my mom were gone.

A few days earlier, I had completed my final exams, and I was looking forward to going home and telling my dad that the research project for my photonics class was a success. My dad, always my supporter and encourager, would have wanted to hear the comments my professor made about my research, and I was keen to tell him how pleased I was. The success of my project would have helped me gain admittance into a PhD program. Entry into the program was competitive, and since all applicants had excellent grades, their final research project often made the difference. My dad told me I had the smarts to achieve whatever I set my mind to, and before my parents died, I had my mind set on a PhD in Optics and Photonics.

On the day the authorities knocked on the door of my dorm room, I—like everyone who is faced with sudden traumatic loss—was not prepared or able to hear what I was being told. There was a traffic accident—but traffic accidents weren’t supposed to happen. The motor network ensured the safe flow of all vehicles, yet somehow an errant transport truck disconnected from the net and smashed into the small electric vehicle my parents were traveling in. They were probably going out to eat or to pick up groceries. The two of them never went far unless we were going on a road trip as a family.

They were gone, but I didn’t feel like they were. I expected to hear my dad call my name and tell me that Mom was in the office and that he was in the kitchen cooking pancakes. My dad’s pancakes were part of our weekend routine whenever I was home from university. I would go for a morning run and come home to my dad pouring batter onto a hot griddle. It was his way of ensuring we had some time together before I retreated to my room and my books.

Dad, I whispered.

My knees flopped to the floor and my body followed. I curled up into a protective ball and sought shelter between the door and the floor.

Dad, I need you, I called out.

I didn’t call for my mom. It was always my dad who came to me. I missed her too, but in a different way. My mom was never available emotionally, but I knew she loved me. Her emotions were locked behind walls that would not yield to expressions of sentiment. My dad accepted her as she was, but he spent a lot of time helping me feel and express my emotions. Mine, I came to understand, were not as tightly shielded as hers.

I missed both of my parents, and I was mentally and emotionally numb. When all the tasks of the funeral were completed, I didn’t know what to do. I’d asked one of the mourners from the church that organized the funeral, and he said, grieve. I didn’t know how to grieve. Grieving wasn’t a subject I’d studied in school. Not knowing what else to do, I laid motionless on the floor.

I stayed there until a gentle tap on the door made me aware that my body was cold. I sat up and tried to decide if I wanted to talk with a living person and interrupt my conversation with the dead. I didn’t believe in spirits or ghosts, and I knew I couldn’t talk with my dad, but I was talking to him.

The tapping on the door continued. I wasn’t going to answer it, but the tapping was gentle and not insistent, which made me curious. I got up off the floor, straightened my dress, and opened the door.

A tall young man about my age with soft brown eyes, holding a tray of peaches greeted me.

Hello, he said. I’m Theo, and these are from Florence. He lifted the peaches, and we both stood looking at each other.

I didn’t know who Florence was, and I couldn’t think of why someone would send me peaches. I stared at the young man and tried to think what I should do or say, but like my tears that didn’t flow, neither did my thoughts.

He stood and waited, and after a while, he raised his eyebrows slightly and asked, Where would you like me to put them?

I noticed his eyebrows because I had been staring at his light-brown discs. The stillness and security they reflected was comforting. They were like my dad’s but brown. My dad’s eyes projected gentleness and safety, and I felt the same sense coming from this young man’s eyes. I didn’t answer, and I continued gazing into his soft, gentle, warmth.

He raised the peaches again, and the movement woke me from my trance.

Who are they from? I asked.

Florence, he said. There is a note from her in the box.

He stood at the door and held the box out for me to open the lid. The note was handwritten in black ink on graphing paper—the type used in math classes to graph an equation. The faint lines and green boxes of the paper were ignored by the writer as the words curved in rolling undulations. The note said:

Hello Brianna.

My name is Florence. I was saddened to hear about your parents. I have a lot to tell you about your dad, Christopher, and your grandmother, but I need to speak to you in person. I’ve asked Theo to bring you to me. You need to leave now. Don’t forget Piglet.

Florence

Piglet was a gift to my dad from his aunt when he was seven years old. Piglet was a faded pink, 6-inch replica of the character Piglet from A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories. My dad’s aunt had told him that Piglet would always look out for him and remind him how much he was loved. Apparently, every time my dad saw his aunt, she would check that he was taking Piglet with him everywhere he went.

My dad’s aunt Christine was single, eccentric, and she doted on my father. It was obvious that she loved him like the child she never had. She was as much a parent to my dad as his mother and father were. The toy Piglet that she gave my father went everywhere with our family, and when I was young, Piglet was a central part of our playtime together. He was included in our game of Pooh Sticks.

To play Pooh Sticks, we stood on the bridge that arched over the creek near our house. My dad would throw two sticks off one side of the bridge and into the creek: one stick for me and one for Piglet. Then we would rush to the other side of the bridge to see whose stick emerged first. When Piglet’s stick won, we would jump and cheer.

Piglet went with us when we went to visit my grandparents for family get-togethers, and he even went with us when we went to the store. Piglet slept in the nightstand by my dad’s bed, and it was my job to remember and collect Piglet every time we went out.

Nobody outside of the family knew about Piglet. I was shocked to read the words, Don’t forget Piglet, as they were the exact words my great aunt had always said to my dad and my dad had said to me. Florence—whoever she was—had my attention.

I looked at the tall young man with soft brown eyes still holding the peaches and said, Please wait. I’ll be right back.

I went to my room and took off the black dress I’d worn to the funeral and put on jeans, a white tank top, a khaki t-shirt that my dad said made my eyes look extra green, and a grey hoodie. I glanced in the mirror and pulled back the blonde hair that hung limp over my shoulders and bound it with a black band. I went to my parents’ room and walked around the bed to my father’s nightstand. I pulled open the top drawer and retrieved Piglet. I left the room without looking at the picture of the three of us at my High School graduation. It was the best picture we had of us as a family even though my father’s face was turned towards me and my mother was staring at something on her left. Neither of them would look at the camera and the school photographer had said it was the memory that mattered.

The fact that Piglet was in the drawer and my dad hadn’t taken Piglet with him on the day of the accident was somewhat of a mystery to me. Maybe Piglet only went with us if I was going too.

I put Piglet in the front pocket of my shoulder bag and zipped it tight. I should have grabbed some extra clothing, but I wasn’t thinking. My shoulder bag hadn’t been unpacked since returning from university, so I had a toothbrush and some basic essentials.

I closed the door to my parent’s room and went back to the young man with the peaches.

Florence said we should leave now, I said.

Let’s go, said Theo.

I followed him to a white van adorned with images of peaches and words that said:

Perfect Peach Orchard

North Carolina

North Carolina was a long way from my parent’s home in Maryland, but I didn’t think about the distance. I was thinking about who Florence was and what she had to tell me about my parents.

I climbed in the vehicle and automatically went through the motions of securing the seatbelt and settling into the seat. The computer screen in the van lit up, and I heard Theo say, North Carolina, M74 route, rest stop 10. I leaned back in the seat, turned my head towards the window, and drifted to a place somewhere between awareness and sleep. I knew I wasn’t being careful. I was curious about Florence, and I wanted to know what she had to tell me about my father and my grandmother.

The sound of tires on concrete was more of a vibration than a sound as all modern vehicles were soundproof. Drivers often slept in their vehicle once it was connected to the motor network. The net ensured all vehicles flowed along at the optimum speed for safety, which meant we traveled with the same group of cars unless a car exited or entered the motorway. Out of politeness, we didn’t look at the occupants of the cars around us although some passengers pulled a privacy shade across their window to block curious eyes.

I faced my body towards the passenger’s side window. The bright green of late May and road signs blurred together as the vehicle traveled steadily at network standard speed. Thankfully, Theo didn’t talk or ask me any questions and the silence allowed me to drift like an empty shell being moved by a tide of grief. I was moving on a current away from my past life. I didn’t feel apprehensive about riding in a van with a stranger. I didn’t feel fear or concern. I didn’t feel anything. I should have asked Theo questions about Florence, but none came to my mind.

Eventually, the silence and the movement of the van lulled me into a shallow sleep that was interrupted by occasional changes of light from the cloud shaded sky to the brilliance of unfiltered sunshine. After what must have been hours of driving, the sounds of the vehicle in motion stopped, and with a half-open squint, I saw two brown eyes and a smile directed at me.

Hungry? asked the man with the smile.

What?

I had to think and remember who the man was.

Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?

What time is it?

5:30, he said.

Okay. Yes. I guess I’m hungry. Where are we?

At a rest stop on our way to Florence’s.

Oh. Okay, I said.

I opened the door and climbed out of the van and quickly determined that a visit to the bathroom was a matter of some urgency. I walked away from the man who I remembered had introduced himself as Theo and didn’t bother to tell him where I was going or ask if he wanted money for food. I just assumed that he would wait for me, and that he would purchase the food. When I came out of the building, I found him standing by the vehicle looking in my direction. He smiled as I approached him.

We should get back on the road as quickly as possible. Chips and chocolate and a bottle of water, okay? he asked and held up items that he must have purchased from a vending machine.

I looked at the artwork of peaches on the van and asked, Could I have a peach?

Absolutely, he said. I forgot about the peaches. You can eat as many as you like. I suppose a peach would be better than chips and chocolate. I normally don’t eat food out of a vending machine, but I wanted to grab something quick and get back on the road. These are perfect peaches.

While he was chatting, he walked to the back of the van, reached inside, and then handed me a peach.

Here you go, he said.

He looked