This is a tale about how two kids use reason, determination and doing the right thing to pull a 28th century global society out of a series of massive physical and psychological catastrophes into a Golden Age of scientific exploration and cultural diversity. I have no skills as a storyteller but had fun writing this. If you are a professional writer don’t read this. You will be disappointed. Years ago I attempted to create a page turner to help gifted students analyse math puzzles, and here it is, expanded somewhat. Every chapter includes an ongoing synopsis so if you get bored you can jump in again later to see if things have improved. There are alien diplomats, a secret society of time travellers, and a real politically radical math genius who was born in 1811. There are hints about THE CHANGE, which completely changed human society, but we aren’t told what it is until the end and then everything makes sense. I have taken out much of the math analysis and updated things, but retained the ingenious way the kids solve the difficult Final Puzzle.
THE STORY SO FAR
Here is a link to the INTRODUCTION –https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2023/09/08/the-finegan-narrative-introduction/ but here is a summary if you prefer –
INTRODUCTION SUMMARY – The story opens with the death of Screech. This is an account written by Sara Finegan aka Screech detailing how she and her brother Michael (and cat Fafnir) were kidnapped by Sebastian Niemand from Toronto 2000 to Egypt 2694 so they could save the world from something called The Change. As one works through the story the reader is urged to solve the puzzles presented to the protagonists, figure out how the world is going to be saved and figure out what The Change is. The story opens with an inserted note by Sebastian about how Screech dies at their first meeting but he time jumps and prevents her demise.
1:04 P.M. Toniday, Khepritor 34, 2694 CE
I picked myself up, notebook still in hand, wiped sand from my jeans, and Fafnir jumped out of my arms onto the sand and complained. The heat was oppressive. Towering above me was an immense golden four-sided pyramid. Two other giant pyramids stood nearby. Apparently we were in Egypt. The pyramids were made out of giant blocks but the pyramids were so huge that as the blocks receded into the distance upward the sides of the pyramid looked smooth closer to the top. The air was smotheringly hot though, and full of unfamiliar odours. The whole world looked heavy as if the black sand was trying to suck the colour out of everything. I don’t scare easily but this scared me. Fafnir on the other hand was calmly checking things out. Then things got scarier when the cube began to shimmer and disappear. We had just lost our means of getting home.
EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS
By Ricardo Liberato – All Gizah Pyramids, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2258048
Then I noticed an elderly gentleman of medium height, with a thick grey moustache, standing about ten metres away [See ‘Making Sense of the Madman’ by Pellmanary Vieta, University of Mars Press, 228 ET, 2922 CE – Ed]. He had a mad look in his eyes and was grinning maniacally at us as if he had been waiting for us. His white hair was thin, he wore a well-tailored grey suit, and brown tennis shoes. A long, yellow scarf was draped round his neck and he held a finely-carved stout wooden staff in his hands. Exactly what one would expect in the middle of a desert. I strode over to have a little talk.
“Who are you, when you’re at home, and why did you bring us here?” I said loudly.
“Yes, I am responsible. Welcome to the Pyramids,” he said gently.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said impatiently.
He looked patronizingly at me and said, “My name is Sebastian.
“That’s a stupid name,” I said, because I was angry and I circled him as I spoke. That puts people off.
Without following me, and not looking put off, he said, “I’m looking for people who can think.”
“I think this is nonsense,” I said, “and why Egypt?”
“Egypt has a long tradition of problem solving. I have fond memories of my conversations with Euclid and Hypatia in a library not far from here.” [Euclid was a famous geometer who collected all the mathematical knowledge of his time in a set of books called ‘The Elements’. Hypatia was a philosopher, astronomer and mathematician of great renown. She, like Euclid, studied at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. He died in 270 BCE (-2964 ET), and she died in 415 CE (-2279 ET) – Ed.].
THE LIBRARY AT ALEXANDRIA
By O. Von Corven – Tolzmann, Don Heinrich; Alfred Hessel and Reuben Peiss. The Memory of Mankind. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2001, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2307486
He started to walk slowly away across the sand, with me beside him talking away while Michael stumbled along behind, carrying Fafnir. That was when he started calling me Screech. He said he’d been observing us for some time and he noticed that whenever I was cornered I didn’t surrender but I attacked, and screeched like a cat.
In the distance I could see a river, presumably The Nile, but the water was glowing bright red. I asked him why the sand was black and the Nile was red but he didn’t answer. There were no other people in sight, and everything was so silent. No planes in the sky, no buzz of far-off traffic, no animal sounds. I could hear, barely audible in the distance, someone playing a piano but that was it. Michael, who can play the piano, said it sounded like Bach and Sebastian identified it as Bach’s Fugue No. 3 from The Well-Tempered Clavier. Just ahead was the Sphinx, completely ignoring us. When I asked Sebastian who gave him the right to spy on us and kidnap us he said Time Central, but before I could find out more Michael began to panic.
THE SPHINX, GIZA, EGYPT
By Taken by the uploader, w:es:Usuario:Barcex – Taken by the uploader, w:es:Usuario:Barcex, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4483211
“It’s too hot here! I haven’t had supper yet! I have an assignment to finish for school due tomorrow! Mother will wonder where we are! Take us home!”
I told him, in a calm voice, that I would find a way to take us home. Big sisters are supposed to look after their little brothers. That’s when we heard the scream. The hostile silence reverberated with the ghastly sound immediately followed by a terrible muffled crashing sound. It came from somewhere more or less in front of us and I started to move forward. But Sebastian just stood there.
I turned around and said angrily to him, “Well, aren’t you going to find out who screamed?”
He said, “It’s probably just another suicide. We wouldn’t be able to get there quickly enough to help anyway.”
“You don’t know that. Don’t be stupid! You must be mad. We might be able to help. Let’s go,” I said.
“Waste of time. I’m sorry, but here suicides are common, and when people commit suicide here they make sure they get the job done fast and effectively. The person who screamed is undoubtedly beyond our help now.”
Everything was silent, the location of the scream wasn’t clear, there wasn’t a concerned citizen in sight. So, when Sebastian headed back toward the pyramids I followed him.
“I don’t like anything about this place. Take us home,” I said, trying to sound dangerous,
“You’re right. This is not a very nice place. Things have changed a lot in the last seven hundred years. Your physiological systems are very vulnerable now, for instance. If I hadn’t taken precautions you would already be rapidly dying. We have cytobacteria unknown in your day, from the Chem War. They produce lethal cytotoxins which bring about what we call cytodeath. On your trip here the temp cube circulated carefully engineered air that contained an immunity agent that protects you. However, the agent wears off in precisely twelve hours.”
“What happens then?” Michael asked quickly.
“Oh, our wonderfully efficient cytobacteria will quickly make their way into your circulatory system, and then into your internal organs. After a few days you’ll experience intermittent stabbing pains throughout your upper body which will soon become regular making sleep impossible. You will experience great tiredness and painful headaches, then blood will start oozing from your eyes and ears and you won’t be able to handle solid food. When the bleeding stops you know the end is near. The end comes when the bacteria reach your brain’s pain control centre, there will be an explosion of pain following by unconsciousness and then, within a few minutes, death, which you will welcome.
We have a brilliant man, Felix Medix, working on a long term immunity agent but he hasn’t come up with anything yet. Several time travellers perished before we knew what was happening and we were able to develop short term protection. I advise you to note the time when you stepped out of the cube. It was 1:12 P.M. Egyptian time, Toniday afternoon on the thirty-fourth day of the month of Khepritor, 2694 CE. If you are not inside one of our temp cubes, or immunization chambers, twelve hours from then you will begin to die and no one will be able to save you,” and Sebastian smiled at us.
I looked down at the watch Gramma gave me on my tenth birthday, an old fashioned one, with an eight-sided face and Roman Numerals. There’s an engraving of an elephant on the face, and on the back are the words TOI CHORNSE GARGANZENN VO TORR SITH FI BLINCH AMALVORCHEM SPANJETE CHORNSENE SPON. [This is Vor Chen for “As the Garganzenn of Time smiles down upon her disciples they learn to smile back.” A garganzenn is a large animal native to the planet Chammer. In appearance it resembles a mastodon but it is highly intelligent, and is the focus of several cults – Ed.]. The watch even has a date display on the back but it doesn’t work. When I got it on my tenth birthday the display said January 16, 1907, which was correct. But when I tried pressing one of the buttons on the side the date changed from 1997 to -697 ET and when I pressed the button again it changed to 1375. A final press brought it back to 1997. Gramma said that a redheaded Scotsman named Filby bought it for her in a little shop in an alleyway off Grunkase Drive in Mondorf Sieben but I couldn’t find either place using every search engine I could think of. Gramma also refused to tell me who this Filby was, “for security reasons” she says. Gramma said she used to know what the words meant but she has forgotten now. But the watch keeps excellent time, and keeps working no matter how rough I am with it. It reminds me of Gramma and makes me feel safe.
“Why are you doing this to us?” I said to Sebastian.
“I need your help.”
Michael said, “But I don’t want to die and I hate this heat. Take me home!”
“You won’t be leaving until you’ve solved my puzzles,” he said with annoyance.
“Give us the stupid puzzles, I love puzzles, I’ll solve them then we can go home,” I said calmly.
“I’m glad you’re confident. I also hope you’re smart. You’ll need to be to survive.”
“Well, I’m not Michael,” I said and Michael looked at me angrily but when he saw my grin he grinned as well and calmed down. Mission accomplished.
Then I said, “I don’t know why you think solving puzzles will save the world anyway.”
“I’d love to tell you, but I’ve already tried that, and it doesn’t work. This isn’t the first time we’ve met, you know. We’ve talked four times already but whenever I give you the facts ahead of time it never works out. So this time I’m going to leave you in the dark for awhile.
You see, after I made my first trip back to speak to speak to you I messed things up, so I returned a second time, a few minutes before my first trip. Then I made two more trips back before I got things right, and just sent the cube back and depended on your curiosity. As long as the trips were short and I interacted minimally with the past, we were safe. Nonetheless, it’s still a dangerous thing to do, and afterwards the time stream had to be monitored carefully to make sure that things reverted back to where they would have gone if I hadn’t made the trips. Our scientists tell us that calamities are highly improbable, despite what that fool Bradbury says [An obscure science fiction writer named Ray Bardbury (1920 to 2012 CE) (-2774 to -2782 ET) published a story in 1952 called ‘A Sound of Thunder’ which describes how time travellers return to prehistoric times to hunt a tyrannosaurus rex and when one of them steps on a butterfly it has a huge impact on future events – Ed.]. But time travel still has to be done with great care and Time Central is kept busy keeping an eye on things.”
I said, “Well, you never did get it right, old man. It wasn’t curiosity that brought us here, it was Fafnir. He ran into the cube and I attempted to rescue him. If you think I’d be stupid enough to climb into a cube that just suddenly appeared in my backyard just out of curiosity, without knowing anything about the cube, like something silly out of a Dr. Who episode, then you don’t have a very high opinion of me. Curiosity without reason can be dangerous.” [Dr. Who was the time travelling protagonist of a popular British science fiction video series that started in 1963 (-731 ET). It continued off and on for about two hundred years in various forms – Ed.].
Sebastian said, “You have my apology. I have under-estimated you. This is even better.”
JONAS SALK, 1959
By SAS Scandinavian Airlines – Commons: file, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53755620
Then he bowed solemnly to me. At that point we came to a small, ancient three-sided one-room hut so Sebastian led us inside to get out of the blazing sun. I had a dozen questions but all that Sebastian said was, “I’ll answer your questions after you’ve solved all of my puzzles. Puzzle solving skills are valuable. A person can wait for help, try magic words, pray to idols for help, or simply come up with their own solution. This requires thinking and determination but it gets the job done. Problem solvers have had an enormous impact on the world, like Salk and Nightingale. Think of the problems that faced Cassandra Masterson.” [In 2461 CE (-233 ET) Dr. Masterson accomplished the first human brain transplant. The sad, grotesque story of what happened to the recipient is also well-known – Ed].
“Forget the speeches. Bring on the puzzles,” I said.
“All right, we’ll start with the mugs,” said Sebastian, and he drew rough sketches of nine mugs in the sand like this:
“Here are nine mugs, five full of camel milk and four empty. You must form a straight line of five full mugs in a row. You can do it by moving four mugs, by exchanging mugs 2 and 7, then exchanging mugs 4 and 9. Your challenge is to make a row of five by moving just three mugs. There’s a way of doing it by moving just two mugs as well, but that’s harder, so you don’t have to solve that one.”
I took mugs 3, 5 and 7 and lined them up between mugs 1 and 9. Problem solved. Then, being curious, I tried to solve the second puzzle, the one we didn’t have to solve. Since Sebastian said it was harder, I figured that there was some sort of trick to it, something perhaps that we were taking for granted which we shouldn’t. It used up some precious minutes but I solved it. It was natural to assume that we had to move mugs around but then it occurred to me that we could also move camel milk around as well. So the answer is to pour mug 7 into mug 2, and pour mug 9 into mug 4.
“Impressive,” said Sebastian, “promising. Let’s try another one before I give you the big one that counts. There were three sisters named Ai (short for Amy), Bea (Beatrice) and Cee (Celia). They inherited the entire estate of their dear departed Aunt Dee (Deirdre). Ai was to get one half of the estate, Bea was to get one third, and Cee one eighth. The only problem is that the estate consisted of twenty-three living breathing elephants. That’s all. Nothing else. How was Ai going to claim half of twenty-three elephants without cutting one elephant in half? Bea and Cee had the same problem. Here’s a hint. Ai, Bea and Cee had a neighbour named Effie (Euphemia) who owned one pet elephant and who had expressed an interest in helping out. How did Ai, Bea and Cee solve their problem?”
After a certain amount of thought it occurred to me that the problem was that twenty-three was an odd number. What if Ai, Bea and Cee bought Effie’s elephant from her? Twenty-four is much easier to work with. I did the calculations anyway and it turns out that Ai would get twelve elephants (one half), Bea would get eight (one third) and Cee would get three (one eighth). It was Michael who noticed that twelve plus eight plus three only adds up to twenty-three.
“So, instead of buying Effie’s elephant,” said Michael with a smile, “just borrow it, distribute the estate as calculated, then take the remaining twenty-fourth elephant and give it back to Effie! Problem solved.”
“Excellent! Your solution is correct, Michael,” said Sebastian.
I thought for a moment then said, “No it isn’t. Ai was to get half of twenty-three elephants, not half of twenty-four. The solution is that there is no solution without butchering elephants. The people who approved of Dee’s will are the ones who made a mistake. Since one half plus one third plus one eighth only adds up to twenty-three twenty-fourths, the statement that the sisters were to inherit the entire estate was wrong. So there. When you lose something in the backyard don’t look for it in the front yard because the light is better.” [Screech is correct here. Fractions with numerators of one are called Egyptian fractions and there are other sets similar to the set used here, for example one half, one third, one twelfth and one sixteenth of a set of 47, or one half, one quarter, one seventh, one fourteenth and one fifty-sixth of a set of 55 – Ed.]
Sebastian thought for a moment. He seemed a little peeved that I had ruined his puzzle but after a moment he smiled and said my solution was better than his. Then he said, “It seems that I have selected the right people for the job. Well done, Screech.”
I asked him what job he was talking about but we were interrupted by a very loud noise above our heads. I looked up in time to see a large silver V-shaped jet or rocket of some sort speeding across the cloudless sky. There were three strange looking symbols emblazoned on the side of it so I asked Sebastian what they stood for.
THE CHESHIRE CAT BY JOHN TENNIEL – ILLUSTRATION FROM LEWIS CARROLL’S ‘ALICE IN WONDERLAND’
By John Tenniel – http://www.themorgan.org/collections/collections.asp?id=570, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34341858
“They represent harmony, stability and spirituality. That was the Mumbai / Shanghai Shuttle most likely carrying a load of Cheshirium,” said Sebastian. [Cheshirium was first synthesized in Australia in 2305 CE (-389 ET) after many unsuccessful attempts. Since it is very difficult to isolate, it was named after the Cheshire Cat from ‘Alice in Wonderland’, a work that is still highly read to this day. The discovery of Cheshirium led to the development of Glow which has made such a difference in our lives – Ed].
“Can we just get on with it please,” said Michael.
“All right. Here’s the puzzle that counts, the puzzle you must solve,” said Sebastian, and he took out a small electronic device, and read out the following to us:
YELLOW FEVER
- Tasty orange oranges hang contentedly in the sun,
- And the greens that people eat are green, each and every one.
- Martian yellows are melons, they’re as yellow as the moon.
- If you want to eat a yellow, go get yourself a spoon.
- Yellows are full of vitamin C and they taste so very good.
- I’m Pat, and I love yellows. I’d eat a million if I could.
- My friends and I, the three of us, were rocketing to the east.
- But Ken left all our food behind – hunger stalked us like a beast.
- But I was in the rocket’s hold and came across a pile.
- It was a bunch of yellows, so I began to smile.
- I calmly took half of what I saw, as well as half a yellow,
- And left the rest behind for the next poor hungry fellow.
- My best friend Kenneth wandered in and saw the melons there.
- He found himself so happy that he had to sit down in a chair.
- Like me, dear Kenneth helped himself to half of what was left
- Plus half a yellow also. They were light, not hard to heft.
- A minute later our friend Nancy stumbled down the stairs.
- She could not find her friends so she was searching everywhere.
- In the quiet light of the stairwell she desperately felt the need
- To take in something edible. She had to have a feed.
- And then she saw the yellows, and quickly rushed ahead.
- She felt like eating something. Starvation was her dread.
- But also on the spacecraft was our mascot, a talking cat.
- We’d got the cat on Venus in exchange for a bowler hat.
- The cat had always brought us luck though he was egocentric.
- The cat, named Matt, was very smart, and could do the Vanishing Hen Trick.
- Just as fair Nancy settled in to eat the remaining fruit,
- Poor starving Matt came wandering in attempting to eat a boot.
- So Nancy felt great sorrow for this hungry, skeletal thing.
- She managed to be unselfish despite feeling hunger’s sting.
- She took half of the remaining yellows plus half a yellow more.
- She put them into the corner over by an airlock door,
- And a single yellow was all that lay in the middle of the floor.
- She gave that final fruit to Matt, and then there were no more.
- The cat was as grateful as cats can be and ate the yellow fast.
- Nancy took the other yellows, and before much time had passed,
- She ate the yellows feverishly and immediately felt much better.
- So everyone on the spaceship now was free from hunger’s fetters.
- If no yellow had to be cut in half then at the start of the trip
- When they all thought there was lots of food safely on the ship,
- How many yellows were lying around untouched down in the hold?
- I need the answer quickly now, if I may be so bold.
Screech said, “So, time to get logical.”
“I have no idea where to start,” said Michael.
“Well, I’d start with that thing at the end about no yellows had to be cut in half. What does that tell you?” I said.
“I don’t know,” said Michael immediately.
“Yes you do. Think. Half a yellow was added each time two new half-piles were formed. So, each half-pile included half a yellow, so each pile that was divided into halves must have had an odd number of yellows.”
“OK, but how does that help us?” asked Michael, trying to follow what I was saying.
“Well, now we can work backward. At the end the cat got one yellow, so before Nancy took the extra half-yellow from one of the half-piles to add to her share there had to be one and a half yellows in each of two piles.”
“So, Nancy added half a yellow to a pile of one and a half yellows giving her two yellows, and the cat got the pile that now has only one yellow. The pile that Nancy found contained three yellows. An odd number,” finished Michael.
We kept working backward like that until we concluded that the pile Pat found must have had fifteen yellows in it.
Sebastian, smiling proudly, said, “Nice job, Michael. You too, Screech.”
I didn’t say anything but I felt chuffed.
Then Sebastian said, “For your work I will give you this,” and he took out a small gold coloured triangle, and a silver bag to put it into. “After each rhyming puzzle you solve you get another triangle. Don’t lose any because you’ll need them all for the final puzzle at the end.”
I took the triangle, put it into the bag, pulled the bag’s drawstrings tight, and place it into one of my pockets.
Then I said, “OK, we solved your puzzle. Now, some answers. What’s been happening over the last seven hundred years? Where are all the people? Have there been any world wars? You must have solved climate change but did you turn all the deserts black when you did it? Is there a cure for cancer? Have any new diseases come along?”
“Oh, you don’t know about Covid yet, do you.”
“What’s Covid?” I asked, but he didn’t tell me, and I couldn’t force him to. He was holding all the cards [This seems to be a reference to credit cards, once used for making economic transactions. Therefore this probably means that Sebastian was in control – Ed].
All Sebastian said was, “Follow me,” and he led us along one side of the nearest pyramid, then we turned at the corner and there in front of us was a grey football-shaped craft about ten metres long and four metres high hovering above the sand. It had three windows, two side doors, and a large yellow three-pointed star painted on the side. The star was the same as the star on the temp cube, and on the ring I was given later.
Without a word Sebastian walked over to the far side, the door there opened as he approached, he climbed inside, opened the door on our side, and invited us in. Sebastian was sitting at the controls, there was an empty seat behind Sebastian which Michael climbed into, and I sat down in the seat beside Sebastian. There was also a door behind Michael and Sebastian explained that this thing even had a storage unit, a small kitchen, a bathroom, escape pods, and it was capable of teleportation in an emergency. Fafnir had climbed into the back following Michael, and now he was scratching at the door behind Michael. So, after Michael had put his seat belt on, he picked Fafnir up and kept him there by gently rubbing his belly.
“I don’t know where you’re taking us, but why don’t we teleport there?” I asked, excited at the idea of teleporting. I read a lot of old science fiction. Like H.G. Wells.
“I wouldn’t want you to get sick. Some people get terribly sick the first few times they teleport even if they take the acclimatization courses, while others don’t get sick at all. Why take a chance. Don’t worry. This craft is very fast.”
The craft rose above the black sand and the red waters of The Nile, and as I looked down I said, “The highways are empty and I see no ships on the river.”
“We rarely need cars or ships, or trains or giant planes either. We either use craft like these or we teleport. There are a few ocean liners and luxury trains for the rich who enjoy the experience of travel, but that’s about it.”
So there were still rich people. Then, presumably, there were still poor people as well, after all these years. That stinks.
“Where are we going?” asked Michael nervously.
“The Taj Mahal, Tiberi Bridge, Big Ben – eventually. But first we’re heading east, to the Avenue of the Dead.”
It was then that someone tried to kill us. As we emerged from a cloud bank a large blue craft appeared in front of us with guns blazing. A stream of fire crossed above our heads as Sebastian sent our craft into a steep dive. Michael started yelling. I wondered whether we were going to be shot down. But then again, maybe we were going to be rescued.
CHAPTER 2 – DEATH SET – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/chapter-2/
According to The Kidd 