Now high up in the tree, Jon cautiously turned around so he could observe the whole panorama. He peered off into the distance. "I think I can see the lake and the town," he shouted down to his sister.
Zoe's was distracted by the screen of the DTH which was flashing various colours. She looked upwards at him. "Your Handheld is doing stuff," she said.
"It's called a DTH. I'll take a look," he said as he looked for a suitable lower branch to step on, "I'm was coming down anyway. I don't think there is much else I can see from up here."
"The screen keeps blinking and displaying messages." She tried to push a few buttons but it had no effect on the device.
"Good messages or bad messages?" Jon asked as he continued his descent.
"How the hell would I know?" She raised her eyebrows before reading off the screen. "Dimensional Branch Memory Bank No. 1 Full."
"Wow! Already?" It had only been a matter of weeks in his timeline since Jon had created the DTH. He knew though, thanks to sage Jon that 'real' time was passing much more quickly. He was slowly becoming aware of when there were big gaps. When he and Zoe had first arrived, it took him a while to recall the details of what happened on the previous hop. This was a 'tell' that a long period of real time had elapsed. He had no idea how much time but he would not have surprised him if it had been years. He didn't want to burden Zoe with that knowledge right now. "Saying that, it was like eighty six percent when I first got it."
"What does it mean though?" Zoe asked in a tone that made it sound like she didn't care.
"A DTH memory bank can hold up to 50,000 dimensional branches. There are obviously a lot more but that is the number it was keeping track of until that alert." Jon was nearing the ground now. He prepared to climb down and swing from the lowest limb.
"I thought we were going to different dimensions. What are these branches you keep mentioning?"
There was a gentle thud as Jon's feet hit the ground. He quickly bent his knees to absorb the impact before standing up. "From a non-linear perspective they are functionally -"
Zoe gave him a look of disdain. "Keep it out of science class," she warned him.
"It isn't easy without some form of scientific or engineering framework." He could see Zoe's expression was unchanged. "Lucky for us there happens to be a very good aid to help understand the concept, nearby." He pointed at the tree. "So imagine our dimension is the base of the tree, near the ground." He indicated further up the tree. "As time passes we get further up the trunk. It then branches off in different directions with literal branches. Those branches, branch off and so on. The point where branches meet is a dimensional branch point. The DTH has logged 50,000 of them. 50,000 viable ones at least."
Zoe handed the DTH to him. "Okay I get that part." She seemed to consider the matter for a second. "Why did it change while we were here?"
"New branch points happen all the time," he said before turning the DTH around to show her. "We've already started filling up memory bank number two. Hopefully it will be having its memory filled far far into the future."
Zoe stretched her arms out. "We haven't done anything though."
"Time keeps progressing and branch points keep being made."
