Manny nods. ‘The only thing that happens when I access the zone is that everything sort of slows down. I see the light, but I never enter it.’

‘That’s because you can’t, at least not yet. My Hunahpu abilities are more defined than yours, allowing me to go deeper in the nexus into the more spiritual realm of the corridor. That’s where I first encountered Lilith.’

‘The female Hunahpu?’

Jacob nods. ‘Evelyn warned me to stay away from her. She somehow sensed that Lilith was being exposed to the influences of the lesser lights. And so Lilith killed her.’

‘She’s the one who murdered Aunt Evelyn?’

Jacob nods.

‘What does any of this have to do with this whole NASA setup you’ve got going?’

Jacob leans forward. ‘What if I told you that our three-dimensional physical world has been caught up in what can best be described as a loop of time and space. Dr. Mohr would call it a fourth-dimensional warp, creating a temporal “boomerang” effect. The essence of this effect is that major events that happen on our planet have, in fact, happened before and will happen again—unless we do something about it. Specific variables may change, whom we marry, what jobs we take, what choices we make on a daily basis. Chaos theory abounds at the infinitesimal level, but the big picture always remains the same—our history as a species continues to replay itself over and over again.’

‘How’s that possible?’

‘The time loop began in what you’d call the distant future when the Guardian’s starship, the Balam, chases an asteroid-like transport ship through a wormhole 65 million years into our past. The time loop ends, or repeats itself sometime in the near future. A monstrous cataclysm is going to take place, one so devastating it will wipe out nearly every life-form on our planet. Only a handful of humans will survive by relocating to a colony established on Mars. A fraction of these survivors will travel through another wormhole to another section of our galaxy, inadvertently creating a closed causal loop in space-time.’

Manny starts laughing, a nervous laugh, driven by spent nerves and fatigue. ‘You’ve been reading too much science fiction; it’s warped that brilliant mind of yours. A closed causal time loop?’ He wipes tears from his eyes. ‘How do you know all this?’

Jacob shakes his head. ‘You won’t believe me.’

‘I don’t believe you now.’

‘Existence is energy, Manny, making transdimensional communication possible. I’ve been in contact with someone from the other side, someone who’s been … advising me.’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t tell Mother.’

‘Who?’

‘Our father.’

Immanuel covers his head. ‘Oy vey …’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘Oy vey means the guys in the white coats will be coming for you soon.’

‘Manny—’