I have spent a lifetime hunting for the stories long untold (part XVI)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part XV.)

Hiro has been listening for awhile. Still reeling from the discussion.

"Ok, take me through this, time travel and manipulation of the metaverse can get us here, but we can’t leave because..."

Hiram interrupted. "We have not found a way to make it work."

"So something is blocking the used of trans-dimensional and temporal shifting?"

"Exactly."

"But Nyarla--"

Hiram motions for him to stop talking.

Hiro nodded. "Sorry, will not say it. But HE has some way of time travel, because he edits scripture? On the fly?"

"We don't know how, but yes..."

Bilqis spoke up. She had been deep in thought.

"He changed the garden of Eden story to replace the serpent with a leopard."

"He is preemptively changing the religious practices, to literally demonize you..."

"Wait, isn't this a big leap? I just got here..."

Hiram spoke up. "The only way to know for sure is to ask a friend upstream in this timeline..."

"This is your code thing again...Respo--what did you call it?"

"Rhapsodomancy."

Hiro stared blankly. "You made that up."

"No. Rhapsodomancy is an ancient form of divination performed by choosing through some method a specific passage or poem from which to ascertain information."

"Okay. How does pulling random messages out of poems, send messages to the future?"

"We alter certain texts that will be reviewed later. We implant a message. We pass down in oral history the passages to study. Eventually, in the future, some allies read it. Match the message up to the coded instructions."

Hiro stared. Bilqis spoke up. "Hiro--we hide a message In text that will survive. In the future our allies, our 'order', will read it...actually, decode it...and reply."

"Years from now?"

"Yes, they know to time travel back before this time, before this probability well started, and bury a message here. For us to retrieve a few hundred years later."

"So that's how you communicate with people across time?"

"Exactly."

(Continued in part XVII.)