Squaring the Circle

by B K Brain

  “You failed, Dave. You see, the program your precious Cathleen ran up there, well, that’s only a test program, with a halt instruction of fifty-thousand cycles.” He gazed up to the booth. “It should end right about…”

  The black hole faded to nothing.

  “…now.”

  His vision settled on the girl, Eddie. With David dying at his feet, she’d gone bright white. His power couldn’t touch her, but the sister? She was a different story entirely. Cathleen too.

  Sam tossed aside the pistol, closed his eyes, believed.

  The entire floor rumbled and cracked.

  “I’m back,” he said with a smile. His broken nose, cracked jaw, pounding headache. All of it, gone. “Fresh as a daisy.”

  10

  Reality unraveled before her eyes.

  Rachel, helpless, at the mercy of a madman. Cathleen too. David, with a bullet buried deep in his stomach, bleeding out, dying.

  Eddie couldn’t help them. She couldn’t even help herself.

  Sam could do anything he wanted, literally, and the things he wanted were unspeakable. The Gravitons had produced a monster, a thing of cruelty and ever-growing hunger. A thing that would never stop feeding. Not by choice.

  The nothingman tricked her into coming to this awful place, for reasons still unseen. She should’ve ignored his temptations, like she’d always done with the voices. Should’ve taken her meds and put it out of her mind.

  She should’ve listened to Rachel.

  Fate, destiny, purpose. All lies.

  Eddie could only stare.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: SIMPLICITY

  1

  What happened to me?

  David, flat on his back, gazed upward into a bright blur. From somewhere far away, Cathleen’s voice, calling his name. A dark figure hovered above.

  He couldn’t think. There were things, very important things, that had to be done. Things that had nothing to do with the disaster in his stomach. God, it hurts. Worse than anything ever. Had to try. Push it away. Make it stop. So cold.

  A program, yes, that had to be run. Why?

  Well he couldn’t remember why, but it was important.

  His head felt watery, heavy. Eyelids too. He looked into a blinding glare above, to her, but his eyes wouldn’t focus. She was beautiful anyway. His belly felt sticky, like drying glue. She called his name from somewhere far away, begging him to hang on.

  Could he? Did he have a choice? A tempting phone call, a horrible sidewalk. The younger one, Edith Ann. Eddie. She was crazy, but nice. Here to help. She couldn’t help him now. Nobody could help him now.

  Damn it was cold. Was anyone else cold?

  A magic hockey stick. A baseball. Sam. Do I have your attention, Dave? Yes. Magic was real. Not science. Possibilities. And luck, dwindling luck.

  Was he going to die on this floor? Here, in the dark?

  Arms and legs turned to ice.

  A bright blur. Her beautiful eyes. Couldn’t see them now, but he remembered.

  There was something, yes, something that had to be done.

  So cold.

  2

  Cathleen stared out the open window, jagged glass slicing into the palms of her hands. Screaming, calling his name. David. He couldn’t be dead. He needed to wake up, that’s all. Wake up.

  His face, so pale. The man she knew wasn’t there, not on the surface anyway. The boss, the producer, the guy with a great sense of humor. The man who looked at her like she was the only woman in the world. Gone.

  What remained lay broken and bleeding, dying. How long did he have? How long did she have? The doctor would come for her, probably sooner than later.

  Please don’t leave me.

  They needed help, right goddamned now. But there was none, nobody around for miles.

  Except the men outside. The government agents.

  They’d help them, wouldn’t they? If only by distracting Sam? David said they were dangerous. I’ll take my chances. It’s all she had.

  She spun to a row of workstations on the counter. Each monitor displayed colorful boxes representing open, running programs. One of them had to be the wall of heat at the front entrance. The men outside couldn’t be any worse than Sam.

  Fuck it.

  She began unplugging power cords.

  3

  David was dying right before Eddie’s eyes, his consciousness stuttering in and out. Her power, the strange light and the accompanying density, flickered with him like a dying bulb. She had to get to him, save him like she’d done before. It was his only chance. No time to think.

  Eddie got to her feet and ran. One touch and he’d be healed, right? Sam stood in her way but she was quicker than him. Younger. With lots of adrenaline on her side.

  What would she do after? No idea, but she’d figure it out. Had to. There was nothing else. A few seconds of bravery and it would be done.

  Not brave. Stupid. Too late for that shit.

  Last step.

  As it turned out, she wasn’t as quick as she’d thought. Sam reached out and with one swat he-

  Blink into black.

  NO.

  The world all gone, swallowed into one of Thatcher’s pictures, fallen to the span between atoms. The place where she’d spent her life had been an illusion, a dream of golden fields separating horizons. She’d woken now, into the inkwell, into the truth.

  David is going to die. Rachel too.

  Eddie was gone, just like before, save one difference. This time she was surrounded by glowing particles.

  Gravitons.

  She saw them.

  And they saw her.

  4

  David, still connected, and all paths led to the girl.

  I have to find her.

  Was he dead? Dreaming? Did it matter?

  The world above, so far away.

  The below place, the basement, black as pitch. The bottom of the inkwell. Power like heat, seeking to explode. Up, down, one side to another, no way to know. Lost, drifting.

  He didn’t need to go anywhere, not yet; she was here. He could feel her confusion, her pain. She felt him too, his reason. He tried to speak. Out didn’t apply, but she heard him. Voices were her specialty. She heard because she was listening. Always listening.

  He spoke of consequence. She didn’t know, didn’t believe. She would, though. Very soon. He’d make sure of it.

  She left and he followed.

  What’s her name? What’s mine? Didn’t matter. Few things did in the basement, the liquid place where here isn’t here at all, and second hands tend to do funny things. Like bending, twisting, running backwards. To new times and new places. Some brighter than others.

  Some very nearly fluorescent.

  5

  This was where the magic particles found Sam. They’d granted his wishes here in the dark. Would they see fit to grant hers?

  Yes. If you speak, they’ll listen.

  If Sam could do it, so could she.

  My name is Eddie, she said. Hear me.

  And so they did.

  A hand, an arm, a body. Eddie, an astronaut floating in empty space. Gravitons spiraled like fireflies all around. Be it truth or lies, they’d believe every word.

  But what would she say?

  Calculate Pi. That was it, right? He’d been saying that all along, but how? Three point one four one five nine was the beginning of the answer, not the question.

  I don’t know the equation.

  Pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Fancy words, but what did they mean?

  Eddie imagined an animation she’d seen so many times on the internet, the visual representation of Pi. Start with a flat line. Place four perfect circles side-by-side on that line, to get four widths. Then place the center of another - the same size, naturally - at the beginning edge of the first circle, and roll it. When the starting point meets the bottom line you have your circumference length, the length of the outer edge. The point where it touches is just over three
diameters.

  A simple question, in the most basic terms; How many circle widths fit within the length? Or, if speaking to someone aware of the context – How many circles?

  If she knew what the question meant, so would the universe.

  That, Eddie imagined the nothingman saying, is the correct question.

  All the particles would need to be free to answer and that meant finding the other-side Sam again.

  Open the box, then ask.

  Eddie stared in shock. Could it be that easy?

  Well, no, it wasn’t easy at all. David needed to be looking too. They had to see all of Sam, in both places, to properly open the box. She didn’t even know if David was still…

  Go. Now.

  Eddie raced back to the control booth and found a black silhouette of Sam waiting. He had no reason to hide anymore, not with David unconscious and dying.

  A blue glow filled the space below.

  Oh God, Rachel.

  The real-world Sam stood center floor, tearing into her sister’s consciousness as her physical body writhed over the floor, screaming, dying.

  Eddie looked back to David. Please wake up.

  The other side Sam rushed forward, seized Eddie by the throat. Electric pain clamped down like a vise, spreading outward in every direction. He was strong because he believed he was, but he had no more claim to the Gravitons than she.

  I’m strong too.

  She punched, connecting with his black midsection. He recoiled, growling in a rage. Sam leapt forward with both arms extended. A grenade of gravitation sent Eddie flying, wincing at the fire in her ribcage. Through the wall, into the corridor. She spun to face him, glanced to the observation window. There wasn’t time for this.

  Rachel, shrieking. The glow beyond the window went deep red. Light separated into individual storm clouds of fading, flickering color.

  Please, David. I’m begging you.

  Sam said, It’s all over, Eddie.

  No, she cried. No.

  If she could just hold on, a little longer, maybe...

  GODDAMN IT, DAVID! OPEN YOUR EYES!

  But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He’d seen too much, lost too much.

  Rachel’s illumination flashed brilliant white, a final desperate gasp.

  And then…

  …nothing.

  No movement, no struggling. No more screaming.

  Only silence, stretching, expanding to fill the space between horizons.

  She rushed to the window, tears spilling down her cheeks. Rachel had gone dark, quiet, her consciousness gone.

  Sobs lurched from Eddie in awful, horrid quakes. She pounded a fist to the window frame, calling her sister’s name. Her physical body had come back, not that it made a difference. She was too late.

  Why had she come to this horrible place? Purpose?

  No. There can be no purpose in isolation. And no questions when the answers mean nothing. It had all been lies to get her here, trick her into coming. To make Eddie believe her life meant something, that she could do more than simply exist. To trick her into giving up her sister.

  I can’t be left alone, Rachel. Don’t you remember?

  Who would take care of her now?

  She couldn’t help Rachel, or Cathleen, or David. They’d all come here for one reason. To die. That alone was their purpose.

  Pacing, across the floor and back again. Had to go. Had to move. Fists over her eyes, hitting. Hurting. No one to stop her. Again. And again.

  Please don’t leave me.

  No one. To hold her.

  I’m crazy. I might do something crazy, Rachel.

  No one to stop her.

  Please.

  No one to be her friend.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: TIME TO BELIEVE

  1

  It all happened so fast. The tornado, the road trip, David, Sam.

  Rachel.

  A gathering of pictures on a cluttered desk, each with its back turned. So rude. All Eddie ever wanted was to see. To make some kind of sense out of it. The frames, all blank, nothing left to discover. Whatever memories they’d held had gone. An oblivious childhood had become an oblivious life. A life of meds and appointments and shrinks and questions. So many questions.

  And people leaving, one by one.

  Voices overcame her mind with circling, chaotic thunder. Eddie cowered where she stood, fists over her eyes, sobbing. She couldn’t fight them, couldn’t ignore them, not anymore. It didn’t matter.

  And then a voice, a female voice, calling out to David. Eddie leapt to the window to see Cathleen on the floor below, walking toward Sam. “You son of a bitch!” she said. “How could you?”

  Eddie yelled, “Cathleen! Stop!”

  Sam gazed up at Eddie, grinned. Just like Doug, Cathleen’s body turned to liquid. Eddie jolted at the shock of it, every muscle seizing. Her mouth fell open, but there were no screams left to be had. She tried, but it was no use.

  Somehow, she managed a whisper. “Cathleen.”

  “Oh, no,” Sam said. “Don’t you see? There is no Cathleen. No David. No Rachel. It’s just you. And it’s just me.”

  Eddie was, for the first time in her life, alone. If only she could’ve stopped him before time ran out.

  She looked to a little table where a baseball once sat. To crumbly concrete where gravity had multiplied below her feet. Upward, to where a black hole had churned its immense power, distorting space.

  And time. Persistent, stubborn time. An illusion.

  Time hadn’t the ability to draw near, or pass by. It couldn’t speed up or slow down. It certainly could not run out.

  Why? Because time is static.

  It doesn’t move, we do. And that means-

  Black holes didn’t distort time, they distorted our perception of it, the way we move. The way we see.

  Looking, Eddie thought. The simple act of observation. What we believe to be true.

  Did Eddie believe her sister was dead? Yes. She also believed Rachel had been alive only moments ago. And it’s us that move through time, not the other way around. What she needed was still there, always had been. Trick was, how to get to it.

  She gazed upward, into cold emptiness. Everything slows down in high gravity. She knew because she’d been there, inside two of Sam’s monstrosities. Behind the event horizon, minutes became hours. But she’d never ventured into the center, the singularity. What happens to perception there?

  Time. Stubborn, yes. But not impossible. A new determination coursed through her veins.

  “Hold on, Rachel,” she said. “I’m coming.”

  Sam laughed, deep and harsh. “Look at her, Eddie. She’s dead. You can’t change her fate.”

  Eddie gritted teeth, stabbed narrowing eyes at the doctor. Her words, angry, as intended. “I don’t believe in fate.” She turned, allowing her vision, and her mind, to focus on still, empty air.

  Closed her eyes.

  Took in a breath.

  Believed.

  A black hole burst to life, just as she knew it would. Beautiful. Deadly. Unforgiving. The powerful yet gullible Gravitons had done their work once again, only this time they’d done it for her. Eddie was the creator now, the director, the host, and they, her captive audience. She knew all the things they didn’t. Time to prove it.

  She’d go back for her sister not because of some stupid purpose, not because she was meant to all along. Destiny, deep and meaningful, had nothing to do with it.

  Eddie’s reason was simple. She’d go because it’s what Rachel would’ve done for her.

  No hesitation. No more doubt.

  She leapt inside.

  2

  She’d been here before, but not like this. The other times she’d only partly participated, her consciousness having been stolen from a distance. Her physical body had always been far away, feeling the benefits of a foothold in the real world.

  Not this time.

  All of her had made this journey, every atom, every molecule within her being
. The sensation was beyond anguish, light years displaced from conventional pain.

  Eddie, mind and body, shuddered under the weight of infinite suffering.

  She might’ve been trapped there, just behind the event horizon’s dense black shell, time hovering at a deathly, horrific standstill, forever -- save one thing.

  She believed when she’d entered, that navigating the interior of a black hole was possible, that finding her way to the singularity was something she could do, that her perception of time folding back upon itself was achievable. And so did the Gravitons.

  She managed to peer through the filmy void, to the outside world. The doctor stood frozen at the moment she’d left him, infinitely fixed in place. She suddenly realized it wasn’t her that was trapped; it was Sam. And her task would take no time at all.

  She only needed to focus.

  I…can’t…I…

  Rational thought wouldn’t come, the torment was too much. Even a man on fire could run, scream, fight for his life. But this. This was-

  Rachel.

  This was for Rachel.

  Eddie began to move. Deeper. Toward the center of all that ever was. So close, the span between horizons, closing in, pulling. Everything, nothing. This was the end, the beginning, two particles speaking from opposite sides of the universe. Two particles so close as to be one, whispering infinite, unknowable secrets.

  Time unwound.

  Eddie strained to see the world outside. Sam was moving, but not forward, back, into the what had been, into the past. She saw Cathleen, standing in shadow, crying. David, lying over cold concrete yet moving, hands cradling his wound. And Rachel at the wall, her eyes pleading.

  All of them, alive. She’d done it.

  Just a little further. Back to when David could see.

  Shuddering, every atom screaming. Had to move. Had to get out of there. Had to-

  David. Bleeding but conscious. Awake. Time to go.

  The other-side Eddie reappeared upstairs in the control booth, right where she expected to, face-to-face with the silhouette of a very bad man. She glanced to the window. The black hole had vanished. It wasn’t here, not now.