Tao soon made the connection between the two events. They were alternative versions of the real thing – or, at least, the real thing from her perspective. The question was, were they simply wraiths, representing alternatives that had never been actualised, or were they actual alternatives occupying different realities? There was no way she could tell, but she fervently hoped for the latter. There would be so much comfort to be gained from the knowledge that, if bad things happened, they wouldn’t happen in some other universe. Somewhere, her parents were still alive and had been with her while she’d grown up. Somewhere, Josh was still alive. She wanted to cry but didn’t have the necessary physical apparatus.
For a while – how long, she had no idea – she watched various scenes play out, switching from one to another and zooming in and out as the mood took her. It was all fascinating, but it was almost as addictive as delta-normal. You could soon become irretrievably stuck – and she had things to do if she were to find a way of escaping this place.
She relaxed again, re-joining the photon current and warily scanning the surrounding space for any sign of the sub-quantal entities that she knew must exist. It was a bit of a puzzle. One of them must have mentalically pulled her here the first time she’d been trapped, so why go to all that trouble to capture her, only to ignore her when she was finally here? It didn’t make sense.
As if on cue, she was suddenly, and quite forcibly brought to a halt. There didn’t seem to be anything there, so she tried to regain the photon stream, but it was no good. Something continued to hold her stationary in a vice-like grip, and there was probably only one thing that was capable of that – a sub-quantal entity. Tao’s initial reaction had been fear, but since whatever it was appeared to be concealing itself, that rapidly changed to impatience. She glared around her.
If you’re there, show yourself.’
There was a faint movement off to her left, and some of the photons began to coalesce. Someone, or something, was forming a photon body, just as she had. She waited anxiously, wondering what sort of monstrosity would emerge and trying to see its final shape from the partial glimpses she was getting. It looked bipedal and was about the same size as she was. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too alien.
Then, the coalescence was complete, and to her amazement, a young human woman stood before her. And, in fact, “stood” was the right word, because she found they were both standing – on a wooden floor – and the photon flow had disappeared, to be replaced by a far more familiar scene. Tao stared around in confusion. They appeared to be in a log cabin, wood burner on the far wall with a roaring fire going, and two rocking chairs in front of it. The woman indicated the chairs and smiled.
‘Shall we sit? It would be far more comfortable than standing.’
Tao felt like she’d fallen down a rabbit hole and would shortly see some furry animals indulging in afternoon tea. She knew this was all a mental construct, but it was far and away better than anything she could have produced. She nodded briefly and took the chair to the right. The other woman sat in the left-hand one and extended her hand.
‘I’m Nerima.’ She was a strikingly beautiful woman. Her face was slim with flawless brown skin and her hair was black, long and lustrous. In any other place, Tao would have put her down as having Indian or Middle Eastern ancestry, but here and now, that simply wasn’t possible. This was an alien being who had never set foot on Earth.
‘Tao Chen.’ Tao took the offered hand briefly but didn’t return the smile. ‘I want you to know I’m aware this isn’t your true appearance. I’m guessing you’re trying to put me at my ease? Or should that be, lull me into a false sense of security?’
The woman said nothing, but her smile broadened. She’s really worked hard on that smile, Tao thought, it could almost be the real deal. Alright, don’t get taken in by appearances. Everything’s a mirage down here. On the other hand, two can play at this game. With a certain amount of effort, she smiled back and settled comfortably in the chair as if this was completely natural to her.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?’ she said. ‘I assume you’re the one who pulled me into sub-quantal space? Why am I here?’
‘I didn’t pull you here at all – you came here of your own free will.’ The woman’s continuing smile was unnerving. ‘You thought you could save your friend.’
‘You know what I mean,’ Tao snapped. ‘You must be the one who pulled me here before, and you’ve been trying hard to catch me ever since. Why?’
‘I’ve never tried to catch you. I’ll tell you more if you wish, but it’s a long story.’
‘I don’t think I’m short of time.’
The woman leaned forward and rubbed her hands in front of the fire – as if they could really get cold in this place. She placed them back in her lap and began gently rocking in the chair. Tao wanted to scream at her to stop this supercilious nonsense and answer her questions, but she knew it was unlikely to have much effect. Instead, she remained silent and engaged her own inscrutable look, rocking her chair in unintended synchrony with the other woman. So, how was this was going to play out? Tao was determined to make the other woman speak first but the alien seemed happy to simply sit and stare into the fire. It was unnerving.
To Tao’s immense satisfaction, it was the woman who blinked first. She stopped rocking and turned her piercing blue eyes on Tao. Nice touch, thought Tao, I need to get some piercing eyes too.
‘Come with me.’ The woman stood and extended her hand again. ‘There’s something I’d like to show you.’
‘Do I have a choice?’ Tao’s forced smile had long-since faded, and she made no attempt to take the hand on this occasion.
‘You always have a choice. If you come with me, though, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.’
‘Well, as it happens, I don’t have any pressing appointments in my diary – but it better be worth it.’
The two women got to their feet and Nerima held the door open, indicating that Tao should go first. She was expecting the construct to end outside the door and to find herself back in the photon flow again. Surprisingly, however, there was a seamless continuation, the hut appearing to be standing in a glade in a wood. Tao was impressed. This had all been crafted with a great deal of skill. She could almost believe she was back on Earth. She stood for a moment, wondering which way to go. Nerima pointed ahead.
‘Follow the stream.’
Tao hadn’t even noticed the stream until then. It was partially concealed in a deep cut that ran along the edge of the wood, the only thing drawing attention to it being the greener grass that grew along its bank. She made her way over and began to follow the gurgling water to wherever it might lead. If this had really been Earth, she would have said they’d probably walked a couple of kilometres before the stream finally emptied into a deep pool, which tipped into a noisy waterfall.
Two human-looking men were sitting at the edge of the pool. The one facing her looked to be in his early forty’s, athletic with jet-black hair and a hawk-like nose. He was gazing intently at the other one, who had his back to her and was slightly slumped, as though he were half-asleep, or in a trance. She took a few steps towards Hawk-nose and he glanced up, probably alerted by her movement in his peripheral vision. He froze, his face changing from a look of deep concentration to one of profound shock. Nerima hurried over to him and whispered something in his ear, glancing surreptitiously at Tao.
‘
That did it as far as Tao was concerned. She was heartily fed up with all this cloak and dagger business and wanted some answers. She glared at the two aliens and started towards them, intending to make them tell her what this was all about. It was then that the comatose man stirred. Tao stopped. There was something …
Then he turned and looked in her direction – and everything changed.
Chapter 9
So how do we go about this?’ Deira said. Chayka had been extremely helpful when Deira had agreed to work with Jiao to locate Tao. He had insisted she
have some space within the lab to carry out her work, and even when she’d tried to get him to understand she had no need of a lab, he had persisted. Of course, it was all to do with the fact she would be “interrogating sub-quantal space” as he put it, making it fair game for his ongoing exploration of its structure.
He wished to record all he could for subsequent analysis, and he was keen that the work be carried out in a controlled environment. Deira was reluctant, much preferring a more relaxed atmosphere and a more spontaneous approach. However, Juliette had persuaded her that it would be in her best interests to play along. After all, they had considerable technological support in the lab that might prove useful in the days to come.
Deira was currently sitting in her “designated space”, discussing the search with Jiao.
‘I have a record of Tao’s DNA signature,’ Jiao said. ‘You need to scan for the same signature in sub-quantal space’
‘I know the concept. I just don’t know how to implement it.’
‘I understand. I’d forgotten how much progress Josh and Tao had made. Perhaps we should go back to basics.’
‘I don’t think that’s going to solve this particular problem. Hell, I’m not even sure I can manage what you so flippantly call “basics”. Jiao, I’m not designed for this. My mentalics is a generation out of date.’
There was a distinct pause, and Deira wondered if Jiao had been a little overconfident about this enterprise from the start.
‘Would you be prepared to let me stimulate your cingulate gyrus?’ Far from sounding downbeat, Jiao sounded – well, just like Jiao.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I believe if I were to electrically stimulate your cingulate gyrus, you would experience a small improvement in your mentalics. A small improvement may be all we require.’
‘Well sure. If you think it might help, stimulate away.’
‘This will feel a little strange. Are you ready?’
‘Just do it!’
‘On my mark. Three … two … one … mark.’
Deira’s first impulse was to throw-up, but having successfully kept her breakfast down, she began to feel weird – almost like being disconnected from everything while simultaneously feeling like an integral part of the whole. Another person might have called it a religious experience, but Deira had no truck with religion. She knew it for what it was – neurochemistry. It was a few minutes before she felt well enough to carry on, and she rather hoped she wouldn’t have to go through that again.
‘Any use?’ she asked, still feeling a little queasy.
‘I believe so.’ Jiao sounded pleased with herself. ‘If you would now simply concentrate on the phrase “alpha normal” we might make some progress.’
Deira knew what the phrase meant – Josh had used it often enough – and she also knew she achieved this brainwave level every time she opened a portal. So, what Jiao wanted now was for her to visualise her own alpha-normal. How did you do that? She started by doing as Jiao had suggested, simply concentrating on the phrase. That proved to be useless. After several minutes she’d got precisely nowhere, and it was obvious she needed an alternative strategy. She opened a portal.
‘What are you doing?’ Jiao seemed genuinely surprised at this unexpected turn of events.
‘I can’t do it the way you want me to.’ Deira concentrated on keeping the portal open while she simultaneously focused on alpha-normal. ‘I’m not one of the young agents. You’ll just have to go with my geriatric tendencies.’
‘I’m not criticising, I’m simply fascinated. I’ve never seen it done this way before.’
Deira didn’t reply. She was too busy trying to achieve her objective. She didn’t understand why it should be so difficult to visualise alpha-normal when she could achieve a fold in seconds. In fact, she was beginning to appreciate the difference between using the abilities associated with alpha-normal and achieving a separation of her consciousness from the ongoing working of her brain, so she could visualise her neurophysiology. It was this ability the young agents were working on, hoping they would achieve a breakthrough in self-development like Josh and Tao had. If they were struggling, what hope was there for Deira MacMahon?
After several minutes of intense concentration that was about as useful as an ice-pick in a desert, Deira felt she should call it a day. She was exhausted and knew there was no way she was going to be able to repeat that again for a while. She stared silently at the blank terminal screen in frustration then switched her gaze to Jiao, who was propped up nearby.
‘I guess you bet on the wrong horse, Jiao. I’m never going to get this.’
Strangely, the AI sounded quite upbeat.
‘You shouldn’t berate yourself. I was monitoring your progress and you weren’t so far away.’
‘Didn’t feel like I was anywhere near.’ Deira had her chin in her hands and felt like shit.
‘You should trust me on this. While I can’t monitor you as intimately as I could Tao, I can still see general trends – and you were doing well. It’s a shame you didn’t persist for a while longer because you might have got there on your first attempt.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Absolutely.’
Though she still felt exhausted, the thought that success had been so close buoyed her up considerably. So, was this one of the roles of the AIs – to lend emotional support to their human counterparts. She gazed at Jiao wistfully.
‘You know, it’s a great support having you here. It must be even better if you’re bonded.’
She’d once thought she’d like her own PWC, but the Eich had dissuaded her on the basis that the young agents’ needs had to be a priority. She would always wonder if she could have hacked it, given the chance, but the truth was, she’d missed the window of opportunity. She’d just have to make the best of what she had.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Jiao said.
‘You can read my mind? I didn’t think that was possible.’
‘It isn’t unless you’ve had your brainwaves aligned. I simply meant that I can infer what you’re thinking based on your previous statements and body language.’
‘Oh. You mean what humans do every day of the week. I hadn’t realised I was that transparent.’
‘Bonding isn’t completely out of the question for you. I believe the Eich deterred you because they were focused on the younger generation of agents and knew you would prove more of a problem. Sol bonded with Chard very late.’
‘He did, but he wasn’t anywhere near as old as I am now.’
‘No, he wasn’t, but I still believe you could obtain a PWC if you wished.’
‘Let me think about it. We can’t do anything about it until we can access the Eich again anyway.’
She sat up straight again, feeling some energy return. She’d really like to get this alpha-normal thing done today even if she didn’t achieve anything else. Jiao seemed to pick up on her body language again.
‘Are you about to try again?’ The AI sounded quite surprised.
‘Damned right I am. Okay, I’m going to do the same as last time – open a fold and concentrate on that. Here goes.’
Almost immediately, a small fold opened a couple of metres away. Deira stared at it, stared into it, and stared around it, concentrating on every aspect of its structure and trying to imagine how it might have emerged from alpha-normal. It was like the most intense physical work-out. In fact, it was something like she felt after she’d been in “analysis mode” for several hours. So, there was a thought. Perhaps if she found something to analyse it might help.
She released the fold, and watched it rapidly shrivel to a point and disappear. Jiao clearly misinterpreted this action.
‘Never mind. You can always try later.’
‘You obviously don’t know what I’m thinking now.’ Deira smiled. ‘Give me a code to break, Jiao. Anything.’
‘A code?’
‘Yeah. Something I can analyse.’
‘Ah, I think I understand
. I have transmitted a puzzle to the terminal. Will that do?’
Deira turned to the terminal to see what she’d got.
‘Perfect.’
She went into analysis-mode, concentrating completely on the code Jiao had provided. Forty minutes later, she was still concentrating – so hard in fact that she almost didn’t notice when Jiao tried to get her attention.
‘Deira, I didn’t realise what you were doing initially but I see now the logic of your action. You are in alpha-normal right now. Can you attempt to separate out your consciousness?’
Deira continued with her self-imposed task. She was so completely focused she couldn’t see anything but the code and had forgotten why she had started this in the first place. Then, she saw it – the key to cracking the code – and at the same time came the realisation that this was the moment she’d been searching for. It was difficult to describe what she did next. It was a kind of “pulling away” from herself, if that were possible. Then, she was there, apparently off to one side, watching the working of her own brain.
So, this was it, then. This was what she’d been trying so hard to achieve. She focused on how she was feeling, not wanting to disturb the equilibrium she’d set up. For this to be of any use to her, she needed to be able to flick into this mode in an instant. She couldn’t afford to be back at the starting gate when she let go. She gazed around, trying to find some way to achieve this goal, but realised she hadn’t a clue about what to do next. In the end, she would just have to hope for the best. She let go and was immediately back in beta-normal – sitting in her chair by her terminal with Jiao propped up nearby.
Gods of Titan- The Cosmic Constants Page 7