“This is Godseye." Gowdy stood at the base of the silver tower in the heart of the chamber and knocked on a metal strut. "This is the reason I came down here a year ago."
Dunne stood beside him, gazing up at the gleaming fusion of lenses, lights, cables, speakers, and antennae. "You said you wanted to save the world. Is this supposed to be part of the plan?"
Gowdy sighed. He looked past Dunne toward the bed, where Hannahlee was tending Leif. "How do you stop the suffering? That's what I wanted to know."
Dunne nodded. "Good question."
"This led to another question," said Gowdy. "How do you change the world?"
"Tough question," said Dunne.
"So I asked myself," said Gowdy, "what's been the most influential vehicle in human history for achieving sweeping, lasting change? In terms of shaping Western thought and framing geopolitical evolution, I'd have to say the Bible, wouldn't you?"
"Sure," said Dunne.
"We need a new Bible," said Gowdy. "That's what I decided. A brand new Bible."
"Okay," said Dunne.
"Not a replacement. Not a book." said Gowdy. "An equivalent. A transformational narrative presented in the idiom of the day...which, in our day, would be bleeding edge multimedia technologies."
"Right." Dunne nodded, though he couldn't quite see where Gowdy's reasoning was headed.
"The more I thought about it," said Gowdy, "the more I realized how powerful something like that could be.
"Look what Christianity accomplished with a simple book. Now imagine what we could do with digital graphics, animation, sound, and projection. With immersive virtual reality simulators and responsive onboard artificial intelligence constructs.
"If words on a printed page had such an impact, wouldn't it be a million times more effective if we could embed viewers in an organic, multisensory experience? A piece of extraordinary transformational art rendered in the palette of the times?"
"Maybe," said Dunne.
Gowdy looked up at the tower. "That was the idea behind this. Behind Godseye."
Dunne followed Gowdy's gaze along the height of the structure. "This is a bleeding edge multimedia Bible?"
"Are you sure you don't mean Babel?" Hannahlee's voice made Dunne and Gowdy jump. She'd popped up behind them like a phantom. "As in 'Tower of...?'"
Gowdy looked at her and grinned. "Yes, this is my new Bible."
"Why call it 'Godseye?'" said Dunne.
Gowdy fiddled with the ruby stems of his glasses. "Because I designed it to give people a God's-eye view of the world. I wanted them to experience His love of humanity...and His disappointment as we tear each other and the world apart."
"And that's going to save the world?" said Hannahlee.
"Maybe someday." Gowdy walked to a nearby niche in the tower base and sat down in front of a control console.
"Someday?" said Hannahlee. "Why not now?"
"Because," said Gowdy. "I had to make a modification."
"Modification?" said Dunne.
"For an emergency," said Gowdy.
"What kind of emergency?" Hannahlee sounded skeptical.
"To save someone." Gowdy turned to the console and hit a series of buttons. "Someone in trouble."
Dunne heard whirring sounds from the tower and quickly looked up at it. He saw lenses turn and zoom, shifting position in precise mechanical increments.
"Who is this someone?" said Hannahlee.
Gowdy typed rapid-fire commands on a keyboard as he spoke. "One of the most important people in my life," he said, "who I never knew existed until three months ago."
Dunne watched as the lights on the tower adjusted, sliding and twisting with a whine of servo motors. "I don't get it," he said. "You modified this to save someone? Save them from what?"
"From going under." Gowdy checked readouts on the screens in front of him, then typed more on the keyboard. "For the last time."
Hannahlee narrowed her eyes. "Who exactly are you talking about, Cyrus?"
"You'll see." Gowdy typed fast, then checked the readouts. He pressed a button, and the tower hummed fully to life.
The bright white light that always flooded the chamber dimmed suddenly...then faded to darkness. In that new and conspicuous shade, the brightest thing by far was the tower. Dozens of tiny status bulbs sparked like stars on the stacked equipment. Radiant light glowed from the seams, breaking into luminous, pulsing streamers. Spotlights flared along the tower's height, casting multicolored circles that danced on the walls, floor, and ceiling.
"What's it doing?" said Hannahlee. "What's going on?"
"A demonstration." Gowdy hit more buttons with a flourish, then got up from the console. "Prepare to experience the emergency modification."
Dunne looked all around, uncertain what he was supposed to see first. He looked up, then down, then right, then left, as swirls of light and color caught his eye in all directions.
He wondered what was coming—if he was about to watch a glorified planetarium light show, or if Gowdy had some kind of real surprise in store.
"Sit." Gowdy pushed up a chair behind him. "Make yourself comfortable."
As Dunne eased into the chair, the play of lights accelerated. Tilting back, he watched the multicolored beams flash faster, careening through the cave.
Then, suddenly, it all stopped dead. Just for a heartbeat.
And exploded into something new.
Dunne saw an image of a face before him, suspended in midair...projected on the walls and ceiling, too. The face of a child, a young boy, drifting and turning.
And that was when Dunne realized Gowdy had at least one surprise in store. One incredible surprise.
The child's face. He recognized it.
Dunne gasped and clenched his hands on the armrests of the chair. His pulse shot from zero to a zillion in .5 seconds.
What did it mean? What would come next?
The child's face in the hovering image was his own.
Before Dunne could say a word, the image of his childhood face exploded in a shower of glittering sparks. The sparks whirled around him in a cyclone...a storm so real he heard it roar and felt it lift him from the chair.
Then, the cyclone dissolved, releasing him...and became a curtain of rippling light, an Aurora Borealis of glowing rainbow colors. Shadows appeared on the aurora, the silhouettes of a man and woman in a passionate embrace.
Suddenly, bolts of lightning cascaded from every direction, crashing into the silhouettes with shattering force. The aurora vanished in a blast of blinding light and heat so real Dunne felt it scorch his flesh.
A cloud of smoke billowed out of the heart of the blast and enveloped the room. It wasn't a digitized image; the smoke smelled and tasted so real, it made Dunne cough and choke. He heard Hannahlee cough, too.
A sea of faces appeared in the smoky haze, each one haloed in golden light. They were really just faces of the same two people, repeated over and over with different expressions and poses.
Dunne knew those two people. He recognized Hannahlee right away, years younger and damage-free. Every shot of her was a window on her days as Kitty Willow, as Lianna Caprice—all smiles and flaming red hair.
Dunne took a little longer to recognize the other person, the middle-aged man with the thick, black, bristle-brush hair. That was only because the man didn't wear his glasses in every shot; as soon as Dunne spotted the ruby-red frames in one of the pictures, he knew who it was.
Cyrus Gowdy circa Weeping Willows.
They filled the room, repeating endlessly—Hannahlee and Gowdy, thirty years younger...and from the looks on their faces, thirty years happier.
As Dunne watched, the photos started to spin, leaving trails of phosphorescent stardust as they picked up speed. The entire sea of faces revolved, turning in a monstrous wave around the inside of the domelike cave.
And then, the wave rushed away all at once, every face receding infinitely fast into nothingness. A split-second later, a single giant image flickered over the wall...an enormous block of rolling film. A home movie, complete with jumpy camerawork and bits of dust and hair on the negative.
It starred the two people whose faces had filled the cave a moment ago, and it was set on the deck of a yacht. Gowdy manned the wheel, grinning under a cockeyed captain's hat; Hannahlee's arms were wrapped around him, her chin resting on his shoulder. She wore an emerald green bikini, and huge, white-framed sunglasses were perched in her fiery hair.
While the camera rolled, Gowdy let go of the wheel and turned to take her in his arms. They kissed passionately.
And it didn't stop there.
Another block of rolling film appeared, pushing the first one aside...where it peeled from the wall and drifted through the air like a kite. The new scene on the wall featured young Gowdy and Hannahlee on a beach, rolling romantically in the sand. Again, they kissed.
And then there was another home movie, nudging the second one off the wall. The new one was shot at a backyard barbeque. Gowdy clowned around at the grill, wearing an apron and chef's hat...until Hannahlee knocked off the hat and ran away, laughing. Gowdy chased her, and he kissed her when he caught her.
There were more, many more—one movie after another. Soon, the air was full of them, turning in a carousel of laughter and kisses.
Then, new images popped into the mix, leaping from the tower to land in the floating blocks of film. Within seconds, every home movie had one of these new images attached...always smack in the middle of the kissing couple.
Always a photo of Dunne as a child.
It was then that the idea first occurred to Dunne...mostly as an errant thought that couldn't possibly be true. That he didn't take seriously.
But that point of view didn't last.
As Dunne sat there, staring at the drifting home movies, the idea began to seem less crazy. Just a little.
He thought about saying something. The urge grew stronger as the photos of him as a child started to change ...metamorphosing into photos of him as a teen, then a young man...then him as he looked now, as he looked today.
He saw a resemblance, or imagined he did, to young Gowdy in the films.
Dunne opened his mouth to speak...but someone beat him to it.
"No." For the first time since he'd met her, Hannahlee sounded surprised. "It can't be!"
"Yes, it can," said Gowdy. "He's our son."
"What?" said Dunne. "You mean..."
"You're our son, Dunne Sullivan." Gowdy patted his shoulder. "We're your parents."