“Excellent.  It either remains or it transforms into another form.”  He glanced at the cheap lamp on the bedstand.  “For example, when you turn on a light switch, the electrical energy is transformed into thermal energy inside the bulb.  But either way, it’s still here.”  He leaned forward and pressed a hand onto the top of the blanket.  “Look.  As I push down on this bed and remove my hand, what do you see?”

“Your handprint.”

“Correct.  Created by kinetic energy.  Now step back and think of the bed as the universe, whereby using my own kinetic energy, I create an imprint of my hand.  And when I remove it… it’s still there.”

“Until something changes it.”

“Precisely.  But until it does, my imprint on this blanket remains—potentially forever.”  He shrugged.  “Or in this case, until the warmth in the room causes the fibers to slowly re-expand.  It’s not a perfect comparison because the universe is different.  More lasting.  But for the sake of argument, let’s say my imprint remains for as long as this room remains undisturbed.

“The universe is an unlimited construct upon which impressions are constantly being made through means of energy.  Different forms make and leave different signatures.  But on a construct that eventually returns to how it was, like this blanket, it doesn’t.  Imagine instead that it has unlimited memory, so when one energy field leaves an imprint, even if that energy transforms into another form and even leaves a second imprint in the same place, traces of the original still exist.”

Rickards squinted.  “Kind of how a computer hard drive works.”

“Very much so,” said Townsend with a hint of excitement.  “Even when data is written and rewritten over the same space, traces still exist of the original.  A tiny example, but similar.”

“So, the universe is a giant hard drive?”

“Of sorts.” Townsend shrugged.  “But limitless.  Hard to believe, but true.”

“And you think this somehow ties into that glass spire?”

“Maybe.  You see, if energy never disappears and instead either remains or changes, then whatever it consisted of before would still exist, just in the form of rearranged electrons.”  Pausing to let the thought sink in, he continued.  “Which would suggest they could be rearranged back into the original form by way of their original imprint.”

“Rearranged?”

“Yes,” said Townsend. “Back to its original state.”

“But how would that be possible?”

The older man looked back at the blanket.  “Because in the quantum world, electrons can have multiple states at once.”

Rickards gave Angela a sarcastic grimace.  “Well, that clears it up.”