The Quantum Gate Trilogy

by Eric Warren

  His eyes searched for another explanation but found none. “I’m just…worried.”

  “Don’t,” she said, patting his arm. “I’ll be back soon. You won’t even know I’m gone.”

  “Keep an open comm,” he called after she’d already turned and made her way toward the exit. She spun, walking backward to give him a thumbs up. She righted herself and tapped the area above her right ear, activating her comm system.

  “You there?” she asked after locating his number and confirming the connection.

  “Yep.”

  “Feel better?” she asked, teasing.

  “Not really.”

  “Well, instead of talking to me. How about you get to work?” She heard him chuckle, but he didn’t protest and when she didn’t hear anything else she assumed he’d taken her advice. She pulled the sleeve of her jacket up and reaching over with her elbow, tapped a simple command into the holographic keypad displayed on her skin, muting the call. Frees didn’t need to hear her huffing and puffing as she jogged through the streets of Chicago. This would be simple, take the hyperloop down to the station, turn the refractor on and run as fast as she could to Jill’s house. Reverse the process and they would be good to go.

  Easy.

  Seven

  One of the hardest things about growing up under the radar had been the isolation. She’d had Mom and Dad, but Arista had often longed for time with other people, even though she knew they weren’t quite like her. She brought up the subject at least once a month or whenever they passed through a new town, looking for a place to plant roots for a couple months. Dad had said it wasn’t a good idea to stay anywhere too long; best to keep moving so any anomalies they created by their presence were dismissed as random noise and not persistent action.

  Half the time she hadn’t known what he was talking about. But routine was a bad thing. For them at least. For everyone else it was everything. You could set an atomic watch on which vehicles would pass by when every morning. Occasionally there were variations due to circumstances such as weather, but for the most part, the machines kept to their routines.

  Arista had made a game of it. If she could memorize the movements of everyone around her, she could weave in and out of their lives completely undetected. They already wouldn’t pay much attention to her, but if she exploited their blind spots, she would have total freedom to do whatever she wanted. Maybe even go to school.

  But now she had the refractor. And as soon as she clipped it to her shirt and turned it on, she was back to those long months traveling the countryside with her parents. Laying down roots for a short time then ripping them back up again, only to repeat the process somewhere else. She was invisible.

  Arista reached as soon as the refractor was up, but some kind of electromagnetic field kept her hand from penetrating the barrier. It had formed a cocoon around her, turning her completely invisible but also limiting her access to the outside world. She took a few steps forward in the underground hyperloop station, testing out how far her feet could go before bumping into the barrier. It turned out she had a good amount of clearance.

  She made her way up the stairs and through the access station she and Frees used, only to find the Gate Frees always pulled behind them still closed. Sighing, she turned off the refractor, reached out and opened the Gate. She was about to close it back when raised voices from further down the street caught her attention. She slid the caged metal back into place as quietly as she could, and reactivated the refractor, wondering if it would conceal the sound of her footsteps as well.

  The voices had come from the direction she needed to go, she only hoped it was a couple of machines programmed for raucous behavior rather than what she suspected it probably was.

  Despite having the refractor, Arista moved slow, still unsure of this new technology. She’d become so used to sneaking around with Frees it was hard to get out of the habit. Without her hoodie over her head she felt naked, but it wouldn’t deter her.

  She passed storefront after storefront, some open and others with closed signs adorning their windows until she rounded the corner. She stood on the intersection of Archer and California, but all was quiet. A driverless delivery vehicle rumbled past, hovering inches above the ground. It was strangely still for an area that should have a lot more people. There was no trace of the voices she thought she’d heard. Maybe they’d been in her head, she hadn’t had much sleep lately. And what little sleep she got came in short bursts, nothing that would give her a full REM experience.

  But the Device hadn’t detected anything that might be wrong, so she had to assume it was either nerves, exhaustion or some combination of the two. Mentally she was spent. After what she’d done back in the hotel…she didn’t even want to think about it. It was too horrible—

  A man. Running.

  She spotted him from her place on the corner. He was running backward brandishing a weapon—it looked like a pistol—out in front of him as he checked behind to see where he was going. He came right across the intersection and Arista caught the glint of his red eyes as he passed out from underneath the shadow of one of the buildings on the corner.

  Peacekeeper.

  She jumped, looking for a place to hide only to remember he couldn’t see her. But to make sure she remained perfectly still. His gaze had passed right over her as he checked behind him. He squeezed off a round from his gun, but Arista couldn’t track where the bullet had gone. There could only be one type of individual he’d be shooting at.

  Arista picked him up a second later. Or rather, the Device did; the male human’s life signs coming into scanning range as he weaved and ducked behind different barriers.

  “Now this is what I call entertainment!” the human yelled from behind a large electrical box on the side of the street.

  The Peacekeeper didn’t respond, except when he realized where the human was he turned to sprint in the opposite direction. If the Peacekeeper could lock in his stride, he could easily outpace the human. The human had been sloppy in coming after him. Nothing like Byron.

  Crack!

  The Peacekeeper fell mid-turn, his gun scattering away.

  “Ha!” the human yelled, popping up over the electrical box. He vaulted it, jogging over to where the Peacekeeper lay in the middle of the intersection. “Not a bad shot, but a leg’s only worth ten points,” the human said, aiming his gun for the center of the Peacekeeper’s back as he tried to crawl away. “Body shot is worth fifty, and the head…” He aimed the gun higher until its angle lined up directly with the Peacekeeper’s head. “Is worth a hundred.” He pulled the trigger and Arista recognized the familiar blast pattern of the drill gun appear on the back of the Peacekeeper’s skull. The Peacekeeper screamed in agony for exactly two-point-two seconds before collapsing, motionless.

  Arista stood frozen in horror as the human holstered his weapon and scanned the area. He tapped his forearm, bringing up a holo display Arista was too far away to make out. Then he touched his lapel and shimmered out of existence.

  Stupid! She should have moved while she could still see him. What if he was headed right for her? She’d never even know it until their refractors collided into each other. Then it would be a standoff.

  “How’s it going?”

  Arista jumped, cursing herself for being so nervous. Couldn’t Frees wait a few minutes without checking in on her?

  “I’m fine,” she whispered. She had no way of knowing where the human had gone or if he was even standing right in front of her, listening to her words. Slowly, she took a step back.

  “Say again?” Frees’ voice piped through her ear.

  There was the jingle of a bell and a woman stepped out of one of the restaurants across the street onto the sidewalk. Despite being the only person around she bunched her shoulders and headed down the street in the opposite direction from Arista.

  Arista cautiously took another step back, praying she didn’t bump into anything when the air behind the woman shimmered and the human appea
red again, his weapon already in his hand.

  “Five points is five points,” he said loudly enough for anyone to hear and shot the unsuspecting woman in the back. She collapsed like a mannequin, unsure how to respond to the new stimulus. She wouldn’t feel anything as long as he didn’t get near her. But as if on cue the human approached her and leaned down. He was close enough that he would change her, it was only a matter of moments. He wanted her to suffer.

  Arista took off running in the other direction.

  She burst through Jill’s back door, slamming it closed behind her. She’d deactivated the refractor when she’d reached the fence and had vaulted it with only slightly more difficulty than the last time considering she was sans most of her right arm.

  As Arista threw the deadbolt on the door she struggled to regain her breath. Her lungs burned like a furnace. She’d run nonstop for almost four straight blocks, sticking to the alleys behind houses as best she could and praying she wouldn’t see another human. After what she’d witnessed out there maybe she’d been right to do what she did back at the hotel.

  There was a far-off tinny sound, something she couldn’t quite place, but it came in shuddered bouts, like the rumble of thunder or a far-off train horn.

  “…rista! Answer me!”

  Arista shook her head, the pounding of her heart no longer camouflaging the words. “Frees!” she said, “I’m fine. Sorry, I’m fine.”

  “What happened to you?” he asked. There was true panic in his voice, something she hadn’t heard from him before. “I’ve been trying to reach you for three minutes.”

  Arista took a deep breath and pushed herself away from the door. “Yeah. Sorry about that, I was…running.”

  “From what?”

  She didn’t want to try and explain it. She couldn’t, not after watching that human eviscerate those people. “Just…I wanted to get here. I want to get this over with.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Everything’s fine. I’ll let you know when I’m on the way back.” She reached over and tapped her mute button again. She’d forgotten to do it out on the street and Frees had probably gotten five full minutes of her huffing and puffing into the comm. No wonder he was worried. She just needed to…control her breathing.

  Arista scanned the space, not expecting to find anyone. The lights were off, but everything had been left in its place. Jill’s experiments remained piled in the corner, Max’s speakers lay discarded beside the ancient fireplace. Arista made her way into the kitchen and grabbed some fruit, tearing into them as quickly as she could. Seeing they weren’t here really drove the point home. Whatever Sy had done with them, she hadn’t left a trace. She’d either incapacitated them here or, more likely, at the Gate, considering they were on unfamiliar ground and couldn’t ambush her in any way. Had they known about her; was there any warning? Or had it been like Frees, one minute everything was fine and the next they were gone, wiped from this world like chalk from a wet sidewalk?

  She double-checked all the rooms anyway, even making her way upstairs despite the fact no one ever went up there but her and Frees. His equipment was all still in place, though it had been shut off. But her room had been changed. Her books had been shuffled and re-stacked, and the chair with the little desk was askew. Arista wasn’t messy, she didn’t leave things haphazardly. Even the sheet had been removed from the husks for her parents that sat, motionless in the corner. Had Sy done something to them too? Were they even reliable replacements anymore or would they explode or something even more horrific once they were activated? She didn’t want to find out, she had to consider them a waste unless she wanted to risk it.

  There was the faint smell of lilacs in the room as well, had Sy used perfume? It was obvious she’d stayed in here because the covers on the bed were untucked and messy, something else Arista couldn’t stand. So she’d slept in this room, right here where Arista had made her home.

  She turned away in disgust. She’d wasted enough time, there was a job to be done and she needed to do it.

  Making her way back downstairs Arista pulled an old canvas bag out of the closet. Right beside it sat Max’s old shotgun. She considered taking it with her, but it was large and would be cumbersome to carry.

  Opening the freezer door revealed three small gray containers, each full of drives. Frees said they each lasted him a month. This would be enough to keep a few for him and plant in the colony. She almost reached in before she remembered the drives were supercooled, and she’d need to extract them unless she wanted frostbite. She rummaged through the kitchen utensils trying to find something long enough, only to come up with an old spatula with a rubber handle. She wondered if maybe she could reach in and grab them real fast without causing a burn. But was it worth the risk? She was already down to one hand. She didn’t need to lose the other one because of a stupid decision.

  Instead, she dragged the kitchen table over in front of the freezer, the feet scraping across the floor and set the canvas bag, open, on the table. She went back, retrieved the shotgun and ejected the two shells, then used the barrel to reach in and maneuver each of the gray containers toward the opening where they fell into the canvas bag with a thump. Once all three were in she discarded the shotgun and closed the freezer, then pulled the long strap of the canvas bag over her head and secured it on her back.

  This could very well be the last time Arista saw this place. She’d left many like it before, but somehow this one felt different. It felt like saying goodbye to an old friend forever. She struggled not to let tears broach her eyelids and instead turned to the back door, throwing the deadbolt again. She tapped the refractor and as it shimmered around her, she stepped into the night.

  Eight

  Frees examined the Gate. Arista had been gone almost forty-five minutes. He hadn’t wanted to let her go alone, but she was right, he needed time to make sure the Gate wouldn’t malfunction on them. They couldn’t afford to waste time now, not with the humans on the offensive. He just hoped she’d be careful.

  He’d passed through this Gate four times already yet had never really taken the time to study and understand it. Shin’s specifications swirled around his brain, putting the whole thing into new context for him. The Gate operated on the quantum level; by bending reality to a new dimension. The two connecting Gates created a pocket universe which existed only while both sides were open and allowed the users to pass through seamlessly. It was a marvel of engineering, the pocket universe still had properties such as gravity, strong and weak magnetic forces, but also breathable air! All of which had to be generated each time the Gates were activated. It was a misconception to think of them as wormholes, which he’d automatically done when Arista had first called them transporters. All that was required for them to operate was for two Gates to be activated at the same time—the exit Gate could be activated remotely via a satellite system in space—and then aligned on the quantum level. Once that was complete the passage through was safe and easy.

  Frees pulled the small metal device from Byron out of his pocket. The number “2” was still displayed on one side in green LCD crystal. This device would point him to the exit Gate; give him the coordinates to get there easily. He slipped it back in his pocket.

  But he couldn’t allow Arista to go alone. She’d already be vulnerable regardless whether she had the refractor or not. Going into any hostile situation alone was bad, what if they could see right through the refractor? He glanced down at his hands as if the polymorphic skin might grow eyes and stare back at him. He couldn’t go like this, they would peg him immediately, send him down to machine research and tear him apart. At least from the way he heard Arista tell it. Sy had wanted him for something and it was up to him to make sure the colony didn’t make good on that promise.

  Leaving the Gate, Frees walked back out onto the production floor. Husks filled most of the area leading toward the door, forever frozen in their states of pursuit, cut off until someone came back to reset them, or the
y were destroyed. They didn’t even have personalities yet, just basic operating systems so they could move on their own. But some of them had skin.

  Frees approached the machine where his counterparts would enter looking much like he did now and exit with a full human visage: skin, hair, and all. He shuddered. The last thing he wanted to do was put skin back on. But if it would provide an adequate camouflage then there might not be any other choice. He could always cut it right back off again as soon as they returned. Frees glanced to the side and accessed Byron’s physical traits he’d scanned from the body before they left. His height wasn’t quite right, Frees was two inches taller, though he might be able to fudge that by pointing to combat boots of some kind. Also, the man’s cheekbones were higher than Frees’, but it wasn’t like he had much choice. If he wanted to get into the colony, it was better to go as someone who already had access there. He had a much higher chance of success if they already “knew” the human.

  Frees made his way to the control center, shunting the power back through the system and reigniting “the skinner”. One section of the assembly line moved again, but without any husks on it, as they were all still on the floor near the doors to the corral, it remained silent, waiting for its first victim.

  Grumbling to himself, Frees stripped down to nothing, swearing back and forth the whole time. If anyone had ever told him he’d be doing this after what he’d been through he would have shot them with his felp.

  Oh right. The felp. He glanced down at the small lens buried in the palm of his hand. Skin would soon cover it and any attempt to use it would rip right through and give him away. But he didn’t have a choice. If it came down to him using the weapon there was a fair chance the humans would already know he wasn’t one of them. He shrugged and continued transferring Byron’s physical parameters into the access computer.

  He set the timer, then walked around the system, and stood on the conveyor belt. He had to remember to close his eyes. If he wanted eyelids, he had to close them.