No, I mean, uh yeah, sure. I like that last one. Just make sure that crazy old bastard doesn’t catch you in the bathroom with the digital.

If I don’t meet you soon, maybe I’ll just have to let Quenton have his way with me.

Shut up and go to sleep.

Bye lover. Say hi to daddy for me.

Bye.

Jacob waits until her presence disappears before refocusing his mind.

Father? Father, please answer, it’s been so long since our last communication. Father, please, there are things I need to know—

I’m here, Jacob. I’m here.

Finally! Where have you been? I’ve tried for so long to reach you.

The movement of space-time affects our ability to communicate. I missed you, son.

Me too. There’s so much I want to tell you. Is it safe to talk?

Yes. I can feel newfound strength in your communication, making it harder for the Abomination to track our thoughts. How old are you now?

Fourteen.

Fourteen. My God. How is your mother?

Not good. The passage of time is causing her to lose faith. She’s doubting her existence as First Mother.

The journey’s hard on her. You haven’t told her about me?

No. She couldn’t deal with it.

And your brother?

Manny still shows no signs of becoming Hunahpu.

You need to be strong for the two of them.

Father, I want to talk more about humanity’s fate. I need you to teach me more about my journey to come.

Imagine time as multilayered highways of energy. As third-dimensional beings, we can only move forward along our own particular level at sublight speed, which we equate to the present. By increasing our speed beyond that of light, we can sling ourselves farther up the highway in relation to our sub light-speed friends, but we cannot move backward in time unless we access an off-ramp that takes us back down the highway from which we began. Wormholes are such highways—gravitational conduits, powered by the massive black hole located at the center of our galaxy. Wormholes provide us the means of looping backward or forward along the space-time continuum.

Sometime in your near future, humanity will find itself following a section of highway that splits our species. The survivors will be taken down a wormhole off-ramp that loops sublight time. The rest of humanity will blindly follow a stretch of road that leads to a dead-end … the end of our species.

The Popol Vuh’s Creation Myth tells of the Hero Twins’ presence in Xibalba, an event that already happened.

Correct.

Father, if it already happened, then why are we reliving it?

The Popol Vuh tells of what we hope will come to pass, but the myth is not accurate. The truth is, you and your brother failed in your first attempt.

We failed?