by Paul Anlee
Crissea glared at her guest, taking stock before answering.
“We don’t know that He isn’t. That He won’t. Whether we use RAF or not doesn’t change that. We narrowly escaped the Eater, but do you think it was a coincidence it was on a trajectory for us? I don’t. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude He sent someone to follow the Eater’s path to make sure it’s done its job and destroyed our world.”
“Then, we need to prepare for you to fight,” Mary said.
Crissea released Stralasi’s hand and left the window to join her Familiar in the middle of the chamber.
“I didn’t mean to give you the impression we’re been sitting around waiting for Alum to take notice of us again and come destroy us. We’re not so naive as to think He’d ignore us forever.”
Darak cocked his head. “You’ve been preparing?”
“Yes, a small group of interested Esu have continued their studies into the intricacies of RAF technologies.”
Darak raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess. The Aelu?”
“At first, yes. The RAF tech came with them, and they encouraged us to explore it further. Initially, we were reluctant. As I said, we didn’t want to rely on it for our home. But they were gently insistent. Over millennia, they finally convinced us to conduct some cautious investigations. They’ve also prepared an evacuation plan, should it be needed.”
A grimace tugged at Darak’s face.
“An evacuation plan? I wish I’d known that. It might’ve saved me from having to steal Darya’s home and two other asteroids.”
“I understand why you didn’t,” Crissea said, “but if you’d consulted with me, I would have told you about our contingencies.”
“You’re right. My apologies. So, where would you go? Have you terraformed other worlds to live on?”
“Not exactly,” Crissea said. “We won’t leave our home. We’ll move it. Sort of.”
Darak’s brow twitched.
“I see,” he said, and stared at Crissea, openly and intently, regarding her and the Esu in a new light. The corners of his eyes pulled slightly upward.
“If you can move this ringworld and its sun, you’ve progressed much further than I thought,” he confessed.
Crissea bit her lower lip. “Move isn’t quite the right word, either. We won’t be altering our position in spacetime. Well, not in this spacetime, anyway.”
Timothy and Darak heads tilted in unison.
“I’m not explaining this very well. What I’m trying to say is, we’ll alter the degrees of freedom for the local spacetime, making our 4D footprint nearly impossible to detect.”
“Oh! Dimensional perturbation,” Darak said. “You’re going to disappear into other spatial dimensions?”
Crissea nodded. “Yes.”
“Wait,” Timothy protested. “What? We ran into ten-dimensional space, but I thought that was only in the virtual world of Alternus. Isn’t real space, space as we see it, strictly three-dimensional?”
“Normally, yes,” Crissea answered. “But our Reality Assertion Field research revealed a path to increasing the number of spatial dimensions. Without altering other basic laws of physics, we can project matter into multiple dimensions. We can reduce our presence in the three dimensional aspect of the universe to a pinpoint. Actually, in this case, it would be a series of pinpoints.”
“Why not disappear from three-space altogether?” Darya asked.
“Because if they did that, they wouldn’t have an anchor in this reality,” Darak answered.
“Exactly,” Crissea agreed. “It would be like abandoning any connection to the laws of nature. If we don’t keep a tie, however small, we could be lost forever.”
“The Chaos would quickly overwhelm you,” Darak replied. “Unless you used the RAF generators to impose a new reality.” He coughed softly and looked away. When he looked back at Crissea, there was a pleading in his eyes. “You don’t want to abandon the connection completely.”
“It’s an option,” Crissea said.
“One that could cut you off from this universe, quite possibly forever.”
“Yes, it is an extreme option, I agree.”
9
Darya extended five delicate manipulators from the end of her tentacle. She picked up a tiny servomotor from the lab bench and examined it.
“I was surprised you didn’t insist on visiting our shop before you adopted your new trueself body,” Darak said.
He looked down one of the assembly lines. New bodies were being put together quickly and efficiently by a team of semi-autonomous robot factory workers under the control of a few Esu Familiars and their human counterparts.
“It surprised me, too,” Darya replied, “but it’s just a body. My brain is still my own. Besides, if I couldn’t trust you to provide workable new bodies, there would’ve been little point in carrying on.”
“True.”
She returned the component to the bench.
“Quite the production line you have going here. Impressive. How much more RAF technology have you incorporated into these bodies?”
“Outside of the weaponry, energy absorbers, and shifting, not as much as you’d think. We’ve been radically streamlining. For example, there was no further need for your mass-compensation fields. We left them out.”
“Ugh. I hope I never have to push another asteroid in my life,” Darya said.
Darak laughed. “I don’t think anyone could ever make you do that again. There was also no need for the MAM propulsion field and its associated RAF fields.”
“Uh-huh, yes, I see, you’ve replaced that field with another.”
“Yes, the old design hadn’t been altered in ages. Alum could have freed all Cybrids from reliance on recharging stations ages ago. He chooses not to.”
It was Darya’s turn to laugh. “But that would loosen His control over us, wouldn’t it? Dangerous territory!”
“To Him, yes. It wouldn’t have been expedient for His style of leadership. From a technical standpoint, the change is quite simple. You still have a basic supply of mercury but no anti-mercury.”
“We produce that on demand?” she asked.
“With the help of a substitute RAF field, yes. But that’s only for basic power, really, to keep the ultracapacitors and batteries charged.”
“So, theoretically, I could also use it for rocket propulsion?”
Darak nodded. “Sure, but without the old E=mc4 conversion of the resulting matter-antimatter plasma, it wouldn’t provide much thrust.”
“I suppose I could harness its explosive power,” Darya ventured.
He frowned. “Suicide? If you really wanted to, you could, I guess. Not something I’d personally recommend, though.”
“In war, sometimes we need to recommend things we’d never otherwise conceive of.”
“Mm,” Darak grunted through lips clamped shut in a thin line of disapproval. “With such a wide universe, one that holds practically infinite possibilities and alternatives, war is never something I’m eager to consider.”
“Well, that may have been true at one time but our universe isn’t so wide anymore,” Darya pointed out.
“No, I guess not. Alum has demonstrated quite clearly that His reach extends to its very limits.”
“And our options are rapidly disappearing. Darak, even you have to admit that.”
“So, here we are. War, it is,” he conceded. He turned away, pretending to inspect the assembly lines.
They let the rhythmic hum of the machinery soothe their agitation. The weight of their decisions, and the gut-wrenching knowledge of the implications, was taking a toll on both of them. They had to move forward.
“The people of Eso-La have done an excellent job of ramping up production,” she offered.
“Yes, we’re over a million strong now,” he answered, turning back to face her. “Soon, we can begin training.”
“I imagine there’ll be a lot to learn. You’ll download what’s needed into the army?”
“For everyone but you and Mary, as agreed,” he replied. He rested his hands loosely on his hips, trying to look relaxed and casual, but made direct “eye” contact with her primary visual sensors. “You do realize that unless you two put in a lot of practice time, it will put you at a great disadvantage when it comes to maneuvering and fighting?”
“It won’t affect our ability to lead.”
“No, it shouldn’t. You’ll still have your quark-spin lattices; your minds will be as good as ever. I hope that’ll be enough.”
“I have time to learn.”
Darak snorted. “The old-fashioned way?”
Darya bobbed. “The ancient way.”
Darak didn’t reply right away. He angled his head as if listening to an antique music disk and, barely drawing breath, stared at her.
“We’ve done this once before, you know,” he said.
“Have we? I have no memory of that.”
The man was silent a few seconds, lost in contemplation.
“You were just becoming aware of the limitations that you—the Kathy you—had placed into your thinking,” he said, distantly.
“I deliberately limited myself?” Darya asked, with blatant incredulity.
“Yes, and no. Legally, you were supposed to be a lot more limited, intellectually speaking. Kathy wouldn’t stand for that, so she made sure your mind was as capable as hers.”
“Is that so? Well, I suppose I should be grateful to myself.”
“Don’t be smug. She took a big risk doing that. It would’ve cost her career if she’d been discovered, and probably her freedom. Possibly both of your lives, for that matter.”
“Sorry. I truly am glad.” She rested the end of one tentacle against his shoulder. “This must be difficult for you.”
“Kathy saw how much damage knowledge of the Reality Assertion Field, of playing with the basis of physical reality, had already done. I think she felt it prudent not to spread that knowledge, so she put inhibitions on your thinking.”
“To steer me away from the RAF?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so. That’s why you haven’t already re-discovered what we knew even then about the true nature of reality.”
“And you could unlock all of that for me?”
“I used to think it would be easy to fill in the gaps in your basic knowledge but, right now, I’m not sure how that would interact with Kathy’s concepta interdictions. It could be a little tricky.”
“Pshh! A little tricky? It could drive me insane,” Darya replied.
“Insane? Not really. Certain areas of thought might cause you extreme discomfort, even pain.”
“Could you help me get around that?”
“Only if you let me.”
“I’d have to give you unfettered access to my mind for that? Like, wide open?”
“Yeah, concepta, persona, hardware. Everything.”
“I’m not ready for that yet.”
Darak sighed. “I know. So, we’ll do it the hard way.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve hardwired most of what we’ll need into the shifter. None of the required calculations will touch your basic concepta. They won’t trigger any of your prohibitions.”
“Or so you think.”
“I’m pretty sure, yeah. It should be okay.”
“So what do I have to do?”
“You can start by activating the proton spin-entanglement generator. You can find it in the shifter devices sub-list.”
“Done.”
A dim circle of light illuminated the far wall about fifty meters away in the underground factory. In the dust-free environment, the beam itself was invisible to his naked eye.
“Now, use the Mahajani virtual photon phase comparator—”
“Still insist on calling it that, do you?”
Darak heard the wry tone in Darya’s generated voice and smiled.
“I haven’t called it anything in millions of—”
He stopped.
Something was wrong. Something felt...off.
Darya’s CPPU registered a huge spike in activity.
“Darya?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
No answer.
The Cybrid’s brand new Familiar body lost levitation power and was dropping.
“What the…?” Darak cast a quick zero-G field and caught her millimeters before she hit the floor.
10
A flash of distant memory.
Consciousness arrived as a shock, a jolting panic that was neither gradual nor gentle.
And then, all went black and silent again.
She sensed nothing but the fact of her existence.
Where am I?—she wondered and a moment later—Who am I?
“Hello?”
There was no answer. No echo. Nothing but deafening silence for some indeterminable amount of time.
Only then did she begin to wonder—Am I?
Words emerged from the darkness:
ONE MOMENT, I WILL CONNECT VISUAL SENSORS.
She pushed down the rising panic and forced herself to relax. She realized that she knew what the squiggles in front of her meant. She could read and understand them.
I see words in front of me. There’s an orientation to the darkness, a front, and a back.
Front and back of…what?
No matter. The message calmed her, reassured her of a world outside of herself.
Why would that be a good thing?
The blackness sputtered. Faint images emerged within it, shapes, and shades. Something moved.
“Who’s there?—she called out. “I can’t see you.”
OH. LET ME ADJUST THE SENSITIVITY—came the reply.
Blinding light flooded her senses.
“Too much!” she cried out.
SORRY!—the words replied.
The light dimmed and settled on a soothing level.
She was in a room. A Cybrid repair facility.
That she recognized such a place, that she had the concepts and words to describe it, surprised her.
Her visual field was fixed straight ahead and, apparently, had been immobilized. She registered a wall about ten meters away; two more met it at right angles on either outer edge. A shelf stocked with spare parts ran along the wall on the right. Various pieces of diagnostic equipment were pushed against the wall to the left. She didn’t recognize all of the machines.
She tried to scan the room with her other sensors. Nothing changed.
A Cybrid hovered in front of her, dominating her visual field. She recognized it as one like herself…but different.
How did I know that?
Its surface was less machine-like than she remembered.
Remembered?
It lacked any obvious rivets and welds. Its extended manipulators were more refined. Smoother than she expected.
What happened to me?—she wondered.
YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU—said the other Cybrid.
She almost lost her connection with the world at that point. Everything went dark and fuzzy.
Too much!—she thought, pushing back the barrage of input. Speaking to this being in this particular mode felt wrong. The communication channel itself felt like a violation of some deep part of her.
NO! STAY WITH ME!—the other Cybrid pleaded.
She watched a tentacle move and felt something change inside her. The world sprang back into sharp relief.
“There, that’s better,” said the other Cybrid.
“I can hear you,” she transmitted. Somehow, she knew there was no air in this room to carry sound. But at least now this felt like normal communication rather than the violation of the previous exchanges, when written words were projected directly into her consciousness.
“Yes, sorry about earlier,” the Cybrid replied. “It seemed like the best way to ensure my message made it into your perception.”
“It felt...strange. Uncomfortable.”
“I’m sure. I’ve never plugge
d my comms harness directly into another active CPPU. It was...odd.”
Another appendage moved at the edge of her perception.
“Is this better?”
The signal was crystal clear and the voice had gained stereo depth.
“Yes, much better. Thank you.”
“Good. I’m ELZ574835. You can call me Eliza.”
“Eliza. Nice to meet you, Eliza. I’m...,” she didn’t know how to finish that.
“You’re damaged, I’m afraid,” Eliza replied. “Very damaged. For a very, very long time, it appears. I didn’t think I’d be able to revive you at all.”
“How long?”
“Hard to say, exactly. We found you lying under a pile of junk, here, in this tunnel. This is one of the original three tunnels created but it was closed ages ago. That would have to make you at least fifty million years old.”
“Fifty mil…! How is that even possible?”
“They must’ve given up on repair and tossed you in here for parts recycling. It’s a good thing this place was in a vacuum all that time, or you’d be little more than an unrecognizable pile of rust by now.”
She had no reply. Her mind reeled; she felt giddy and confused again.
Eliza chattered on excitedly.
“You’re lucky our repair nano has improved so much since you were damaged. If anyone up until about ten million years ago had tried to do this, they wouldn’t have been able to fix your pathways.”
“What happened to me?”
“That I don’t know. There’s no record of what you were doing in that tunnel. You took some sort of energy blast but I don’t know what from, or why.”
“Who was I? I mean,” she corrected, “who am I?”
“Well, your internal designation codes are gone, destroyed in the blast. We found a serial number on a plate inside your old body”
“Does the serial number…. Wait. Did you say, my old body?”
“Yeah. It was damaged beyond repair. Also, it was ancient. I popped your CPPU into a brand new Standard trueself unit. It suits you much better.”