Covenants: Quantum Dream (Hymn of the Multiverse Book 11)

by Terra Whiteman

*

  We all met in Euxodia, with Yahweh awaiting us at the lectern. Behind him, the holosphere oscillated attica’s idle symbol, making my eyelids heavy and nearly hypnotizing me to sleep. I caught myself when my body swayed forward.

  “Oh, good, a presentation,” muttered Qaira. “I totally have time for this.”

  Neither Adrial nor Yahweh responded, only glared at him. The tension in the room was very palpable. For once, Qaira took the hint. He folded his arms, saying nothing else.

  Yahweh then cleared his throat, swiping aside his obvious annoyance. The holosphere flickered to life, displaying a series of wave graphs stacked atop each other. It wasn’t much different than what Qaira and I had been looking at for the past several days. And judging by Qaira’s soured expression, he felt the same sense of redudancy.

  “These are cognitive waves,” began Yahweh, gesturing to the graph. “I’ve isolated each to be able to better discern between them, but just know that at an awake state, they are all firing at once.”

  “Our waves, or conscious waves in general?” asked Qaira.

  “Ours alone,” said Yahweh. “And there is a big difference between our brain waves and lessers’. Aela’s data provided quite a bit of information. I was able to lay it against lesser consciousness data, from Adrial’s prior research. Apparently, no one has looked into our brain activity until now.”

  Qaira seemed intrigued and forgot to frown. He looked between Adrial and Yahweh. “Okay, so?”

  “Here is what it looks like when we are awake,” said Yahweh. A flurry of different colored waves surged across the graph, each hitting certain peaks, bearing different amplitudes. They played a song no one else could hear. My synesthesia turned sights like these to sound. It was a cacophony unlike any other.

  “Here is what it looks like when we are asleep,” continued Yahweh. A much lesser number of waves danced across the graph, although some that had been at a lower frequency were much higher now.

  “And this is what it looks like when we are in stasis,” said Yahweh. To our surprise, only two waves remained.

  “Do you—?” I began, but Yahweh apparently knew what I was about to ask.

  “No, though I intend to determine the purpose of those two waves in relation to stasis later. But that isn’t why I’m showing you.”

  “Then can we please cut to the chase?” asked Qaira.

  Yahweh did his best not to glare. “Here is a time-lapse of Aela’s brain activity, from when we tuned the headset and put her under, to when she awoke and startled everyone.”

  “Startled,” repeated Qaira with air-quotes, to which I couldn’t help but smirk.

  The lapse began with all the waves present, conscious, quickly dwindling to two, stasis, then to more, slumber, then to all waves again, conscious, and then to… nothing.

  I thought the presentation was finished, but realized the lapse was still going.

  “What does zero waves mean?” demanded Qaira.

  Yahweh hesitated, looking to Adrial with concern. “I don’t know. Stasis has the lowest activity that we know of. This is… technically impossible.”

  “Unless she were dead,” I pointed out.

  “But she’s not dead,” said Adrial. “She’d be a statue. Aela’s breathing, and warm.”

  “It’s almost as if Aela’s consciousness—her inner self—has left her body,” remarked Yahweh. And to our skeptic looks, he added, “which sounds ridiculous, I know.”

  “Anything’s ridiculous until there’s an explanation for it,” said Qaira. “The data is here. The question now is where did she go?”

  “We’re going to have to go under,” conceded Adrial. “Find Laith, ask her what happened.”

  “How do we know it’s safe?” asked Yahweh, grimly. He didn’t seem to like that idea.

  “It isn’t safe; and that’s the entire fucking reason this happened,” hissed Adrial. “But I have a feeling Aela is trapped in Eschatis somewhere.”

  “She isn’t in Eschatis. The graphs have made that very clear,” insisted Yahweh.

  “We need to tell Leid,” said Qaira. “She has the best chance of going in without any repurcuss—,”

  Adrial snarled. “I already said we are not bringing Leid into the matter.”

  This time, Qaira snarled back. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m the King. Would you question Leid’s orders?”

  Yahweh and I looked to each other, unsettled.

  “I’d question anyone who places their pride above the safety of someone they supposedly love.”

  Adrial hesitated in shock. Then, surprising everyone, he began to laugh. “That coming from you; oh, dear.”

  Qaira appeared scathed. The two of them were squared off, now only a few paces from each other. Yahweh and I looked on, tense, ready to intervene the moment one of them crossed the line. Anyone would have guessed the first to be Qaira, but he quickly relented. Instead of anger, we saw exhaustion behind his withering frown.

  “Look,” he sighed, “I don’t know what kind of competition you and Leid are playing at, or even why, but our best bet at this moment is to—,”

  Attica interrupted him with a ping. It was addressed to Sort, but all of us were online due to Qaira being away from the terminal. The signature was… unknown. We all shared a daunting look, before Qaira received the message.

  It was from Aela, in Eschatis.

  She was requesting a time-lapse calculation.

  NEVER

  Qaira Eltruan—;

  NO ONE MOVED, NOR SAID A THING.

  The signature was unrecognizable by attica—which made no sense whatsoever. Once the message had pierced our audio-periphery, our bodies shuddered with recognition. Her thoughts tasted of malted syrup with a tinge of metal; very typical of Aela. And now I was hungry.

  —I am requesting a time-stamp. How long have I been here?

  My eyes settled on Yahweh. “You just said she wasn’t in Eschatis.”

  “She isn’t,” insisted Yahweh. For whatever reason, we were whispering.

  “Well then what the fuck did we just hear?” I asked. “Obviously your graphs are wrong.”

  Yahweh looked like I just smacked him across the face. “My graphs are never wrong.”

  “Wait,” said Adrial, eyes widening in cognizance. “Time is irrelevant there. We’re probably receiving messages from her that have already happened.”

  I squinted at Adrial. “What?”

  “Answer her, but don’t let on about anything that’s happening right now.”

  Or we’d create a time paradox. Shit.

  I sent her a timestamp of a ballpark estimate: three days. Not a minute later she responded, insisting I’d made an error and demanded I resend the timestamp. Annoyed, I connected to the line.

  It’s been three days and four hours since you’ve gone under, I said. There’s no error.

  Pariah and Yahweh were monitoring Aela’s attica status and cerebration monitor. “No activity,” confirmed Yahweh. “Adrial’s right. This has already happened.”

  —Last time I spoke to you, you told me I’d been under for five days.

  What are you talking about? This is the first time we’ve spoken.

  Aela didn’t respond.

  Hello? I asked, worried the connection was broken.

  —Have you seen my updates in the thread?

  Uh, let me check, I haven’t looked.

  I flipped over to the Eschatis thread, finding a single entry, supposedly submitted twelve hours ago. I was dead certain it hadn’t been there more than an hour ago, as attica routinely scans active threads and alerts us of any new entries. Everyone around me seemed mutually confused.

  ‘What the fuck,’ I mouthed to them, before scanning the entry. It was a first person POV of Aela’s venture through the rebirthing cave. Pariah and Adrial zipped out of the room, presumably to review the footage more closely at the reliquary. Yahweh remained, watching me intently.

  We have a vis-capture of the rebirthing cav
e, I replied. It says you submitted it twelve hours ago.

  —Only twelve? Can you let me know when you receive another ping? It will happen in two more days.

  Uh, sure, I said. If you’re trying to measure the time dilation between there and here, I wouldn’t bother. Time is fucked in Eschatis.

  —Yes, I’m realizing that now. Still, I might as well see if there’s some kind of pattern to be gleaned.

  Suit yourself.

  I cut the call, worried I might lose face and cause a time paradox if the conversation went on any longer. Neither Yahweh nor I said anything for a moment, reflecting on what had just happened. This was territory we’d never tread on—toeing the line between the possible and impossible. Well, not really; the post had been moved several times before, but the implications here were staggering.

  “The subconsciousness is its own universe,” murmured Yahweh.

  “That’s a bold claim, even for you,” I said.

  “There’s nothing bold about it,” replied Yahweh, tersely. “Time.”

  I raised a brow, waiting for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “Time?”

  “Each universe is constrained to its own lapse of time. From the conversation, it is apparent Aela is—was—experiencing a normal sense of time on her end. Time is a concrete dimension of a universe.”

  “It doesn’t contain physical matter,” I argued. “Aela is here and there simultaneously. You can’t be in two universes at once.”

  Yahweh nodded, conceding. “Then we’ll have to refine Enigmus’s current definition of a universe.”

  I reeled at the thought. “We’re making waves, aren’t we?”

  “Always.” He headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” I demanded.

  “Mehrit is probably lonely. I might as well continue her training. There’s nothing much we can do now, except wait.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “I guess you’re right.”

  Yahweh smirked. “I’m always right.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Get out of here.”

  With a laugh, he vacated Euxodia.

  And then, for the first time in days, I was left in absolute silence. One might think such a state would be a blessing, but all it did was elevate my pulse. I inhaled, and closed my eyes.

  Are you there?

  —Yes. Are you alright?

  Her thoughts sent a tremor down my spine. Yeah, just wanted to feel you for a minute.

  How sweet, responded Leid. Just a week or so more, and I should be back.

  Despite everything, I respected Adrial’s demand for discretion. I was pretty certain there would be some sort of repercussion once Leid inevitably found out, but oh well.

  My pulse slowed. All better.

  Nothing more was shared between us and I, too, vacated Euxodia.

  *

  Over the next several days, at least a dozen more vis-captures of Aela’s pilgrimage through Eschatis appeared in attica. After each new upload, we eagerly reviewed the footage in hopes of finding the reason for her current state. But this process had a few hurdles.

  For one, the uploads were out of synch. There were no clear-cut timestamps (obviously), but it was easily identifiable that certain uploads happened before others, or vice-versa, based on who she was with, along with her state of mind.

  Also, half of it was nonsense—at least to an onlooker. A lot of choppy, hazy scenes of Eschatis’s signature, celestial sky and stream of consciousness inner-dialogue. That was the shitty part about having to analyze something not designed to exist outside of the mind. It certainly made sense to Aela at the time, in that place, but to us it was like watching the B-roll of a chemically-induced trip. After the first day, I forwent most of the uploads in lieu of my sanity, especially since Adrial and Pariah were much more willing to pore through them.

  As Aela had predicted, she contacted me on day five and I had to pretend she wasn’t currently lying comatose in Adrial’s quarters. There was another upload that Pariah flagged me to watch. It was a nightmare-inducing event of a rogue Augur attempting to consume Aela’s sanity by way of a fake waystation. Quite clever. By both the horror and confusion she had felt for the situation (along with what dialogue we could parse), this had happened very early on in her trek. Yikes.

  The whole wait-and-see remediation tactic wasn’t sitting well with anyone. I had very little to do in the interim. I was designated Sort, but no one was out other than Leid, and she never needed anything. Trying to decipher Aela’s scream proved futile, and we’d given up on it for now. I spent most of the time mulling around Enigmus, and using succumbence instances to simulate a memory of the Nehelian Drill target range so I could shoot at things with heavy artillery. An idle mind was never a good thing for me, so this type of reprieve was worth the headache and illness that would surely follow.

  I wasn’t certain how long I’d checked out for, but it was long enough that Yahweh appeared on the field, just to the right of where I spent my target practice. I had left my instance open, in case someone needed me.

  He froze as I unloaded a clip into a dummy. We’d used paint bullets during the real thing, but there was really nothing more satisfying than watching things explode. As I reloaded, Yahweh continued his approach with a grimace. I only grinned at him.

  “Your mind temple is a target range,” he muttered, looking over the remains of smoldering dummy carcasses. “Of course it is.”

  “Can I help you?”

  “I think I’ve found something,” said Yahweh. “I’d like your opinion on it, if you’re not too busy.”

  I set my rifle aside. “Sure, as soon as you stop being a smart-ass. It’s not like there’s much else to do around here.”

  Yahweh frowned and crossed his arms. “Perhaps, for those who like to choose their work.”

  “I didn’t realize you needed all four of us to sit there watching the same fucking footage. How about we make a week of it? I’ll bring the snacks.”

  He sighed. “Are you coming, then?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”

  *

  Yahweh led me to a now dim and quiet Euxodia, the lectern holo-graph of attica spinning idly at the front of the room. It was early, early morning, the previous day having come and gone while I’d been in succumbence.

  Nursing a terrible hangover brought on by the attica nod, we’d detoured to the dining room and raided the liquor cabinet as well as what scraps were left from dinner. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. We splayed the food and booze on the conference table and I strapped in for whatever Yahweh was about to show me, popping a bottle of Pelo Segua and downing half of it in several gulps. Hair of the dog.

  Yahweh activated one of Aela’s vis-captures I hadn’t seen yet. It must have come in while I was under.

  She was with the wraith, Nibli, at a weird location of grassy plain and strange, clockwork ruins. The clouds of green flecks swarming over the area like fireflies was a familiar sight. I’d seen the phenomena numerous times myself while there. They ventured through an underground passage that opened into a spring. I took notice of the markings on the walls while trying not to vomit from the shaky POV.

  “Wait,” I said as the POV moved away from the cavern wall. “What was—?”

  “One moment,” Yahweh murmured. “Keep watching.”

  Nibli remained up ahead, while Aela provided us a good view of the giant gear-riddled ruins. This was familiar. Too familiar.

  “These markings,” she said. “Do you know what they are?”

  “Antediluvian language,” replied Nibli. “I don’t know what it means. You’ll find them at every one of their constructs.”

  “Can any of the wayfarers translate this language?” asks Aela.

  “No.” There was no hesitation on Nibli’s part.

  “Do you know why this mindscape doesn’t feel like anything?” Aela continued, though I had no idea what that meant.

  “No, but this isn’t really a mindscape. Mindscapes are temporary and gener
ated by a traveler’s subconscious.”

  “Laith led me to believe that these quadrants were dreamt by the Antediluvian race.”

  “They were.”

  Aela hesitated, computing. “So, they are mindscapes.”

  “Again, no,” insisted Nibli, “for the same reasons I mentioned before.”

  And then the two of them proceeded to pick flowers.

  “What the fuck am I watching?” I demanded, cringing so severely that my face began to ache.

  Yahweh cut the feed. “The language mentioned; the markings on the wall.” He brought up another vis-capture, this one of Aela in what I could only conclude was the rebirthing cave. She felt along the cavern walls, her trembling fingers illuminated by the bonfire at her back. Each flicker cast a brief glow against the wall’s surface, revealing identical markings. Yahweh paused the capture for a closer look. “These appear numerous times throughout her journey. Does anything about them strike you as familiar?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We saw them, too; Zira and I. We found a place that looked a bit like where they are. Except the place we went to had some kind of giant made out of magic boulders that nearly stomped us to death.”

  Yahweh blinked.

  “Laith said it was a guardian,” I added. “Apparently there are things that guard those special quadrants.”

  “That’s… interesting, but not exactly what I was hinting at.” He zoomed in on the frozen capture. “Look at the markings.”

  I squinted, trying to decipher Yahweh’s cryptic instructions. The picture was blurry, and the lighting did it no favors. They looked like tally marks, like what someone might do to catalogue days spent within a prison cell.

  As the seconds ticked away, I began to feel increasingly stupid. I should have conceded, but wouldn’t let Yahweh have the intellectual upper-hand here. It was then when I realized there was a purpose to the markings—a pattern. They were a series of lines, each one identical to the others in both length and width. But the spaces between the markings varied slightly for five lines each, then repeated. This was…

  My expression must have given me away. Yahweh quickly cut to another stream, this one of Pedagogue’s recorded nanotech method of data transfer. Pariah had been kind enough to translate it into a wave function for us in order to better study their communications.