Since then, I’d taken Yahweh’s reduction of the Pedagogue language and compared it to the Antediluvian markings. It wasn’t the markings themselves that identified different characters, but the spaces between them. They were waves, after all. But if I could find an analog function, or even a constant, I could turn the waves into a voice.
Or, at least Pariah could; I was just the asshole pressing buttons.
The easiest method was to translate the Antediluvian markings into Pedagogue language, as they were the closest in form. But easy was a loose term. I was certain we could crack it in time, but we didn’t have time. Not the kind of time this would take. Leid was due back in a few days. If Adrial thought we could solve it by then, he was nuts.
Pariah unfastened his headset and left the succumbence chair, stretching like a tree. “I’m going to get food. Do you want some?”
“Yeah, thanks.” I wanted stimulants, too, but wasn’t allowed any of those.
The silence that followed Pariah’s departure was ataractic. I closed my eyes, melting into the seat. It wasn’t long before the music began, softly enough that it seemed to come from the room over, but I knew better. With a sigh I left the console, feeling for the pack of cigarettes in my breast pocket, and headed for the courtyard.
In half an hour Pariah and I would be back at it, and I doubted there’d be any sleep in store for us tonight.
***
Yahweh Telei—;
“You have to tell Leid.”
Adrial only continued scrolling through the time-lapse thread that I’d finally completed this evening. Not a single capture had been added since the one of Aela crossing Cassima’s gate. Three days of nothing ensured that there’d be none following hereafter.
“She’ll be home in only a few days,” I pressed. “How will she feel when she learns we’ve kept everything from her?”
“I’ll inform her when she arrives,” said Adrial, dismissingly. “We’re not keeping anything from Leid. We’re giving her room to do her job without having to worry about us.”
“But—,”
“Yahweh, when did anyone ever call me back when she was overseer?”
I said nothing, conflicted.
“She knew what I was doing was important. Just like what she’s doing is important. It’s important for our business continuity, for our longevity, if we ever want to flourish in alpha-Insipia. She trusts that I can handle the Court, just as I would trust her. Now what I need is for you to trust me, alright?”
I now understood why he’d been so brash whenever we brought up Leid. It was never about her; it was about us, and how we perceived him. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I’ve never questioned your rule, and I didn’t realize how it seemed.”
“I don’t crack the whip like she does, so it’s easy to assume that I’m not as competent.” He reclined in his seat, steeling his gaze. “But that’s because I trust everyone knows their part. It’s not like I’ve had to command any of you to get to work. In fact, I’ve had to command you to rest.”
“That’s what happens when ninety-percent of your recruits have been in leadership roles themselves.”
Adrial laughed dryly. “There are pros and cons to that, but mostly pros. Has there been any progress with the translations?”
“Not that I know of. Qaira and Pariah are still toiling away. I’ve barely seen them.”
Adrial rubbed his chin, his expression darkening. “I’ll give it until Leid returns.”
I tilted my head. “And then what?”
“I’m sure she would be willing to go to Eschatis herself and thrash those Framer fucks into telling us where they sent Aela.”
“Hopefully it doesn’t come to that,” I said, wincing. I still didn’t believe Mia and Cassima meant any ill-intent. They’d seemed more than accommodating in the capture.
I stifled a yawn, and Adrial shot me a knowing frown. “Go to bed,” he said. “There’s no use staying up right now.”
“No one else is sleeping; it isn’t fair that I get to.”
“I am ordering you to sleep.”
I raised my hands in defeat. “Then I guess I must. Promise me that you will, too.”
Something suddenly stirred in my peripherals, and my gaze shot toward the bed. Adrial’s attention had moved there as well. We were on our feet in a flash.
Aela’s eyes had opened, and she stared unblinkingly at the ceiling. The movement we’d detected was of her uncrossing her arms, laying them down at her sides.
***
Qaira Eltruan—;
Repetitions of five cycles.
Four loops.
Crests, troughs, amplitudes calculated; spatial repetition found.
I watched the console through bleary eyes as attica reconfigured the Antediluvian wave properties to a frequency better suited with our medium: physical reality. It took me far too long to realize that its normal frequency complemented cognitive waves. Doing so, I’d also inadvertently found the equilibrium coefficient through which all information and phenomena moved within Eschatis. A huge win, but one we would have to celebrate later.
The reconfiguration was a success.
I was hit with a wave of relief so strong that I could have melted, but the calm was short-lived. The achievement caused a high; shooting adrenaline through my veins, rejuvenating my sense of motivation. It was the kind of high no recreational drug could simulate. Every scholar chased it. We were achievement junkies.
I then prompted attica to take the Antediluvian reconfiguration and translate it to Pedagogue frequency, using a mundane wavelength equation. As the process ran, I glanced at Pariah. He was watching me, nerve-wracked.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I’m just wondering whether I’ll end up on Adrial’s bed with script all over me, too.”
“Don’t you dare bitch out on me now.”
“I’m not,” said Pariah, insulted. “But I deserve a commendation for my selflessness.”
I scoffed. The translation was seventy-five percent complete. “Almost there.”
Pariah closed his eyes, bracing himself.
A moment later, attica completed the translation. Pariah, the conduit, received the message, relaying it back to the stream in Exodian:
ALL COMES TOGETHER AS ONE.
***
Yahweh Telei—;
As Adrial and I moved to the bedside, Aela’s signature re-activated in the conscious stream. She blinked twice, slowly, and the shine of the script across her skin dulled to black. It stopped moving, but only some of them faded.
Adrial knelt beside her, touching her arm. “Aela?”
Her head turned toward his voice. She looked at him, and then at me. “Is this real?”
“Yes,” said Adrial, and we both shared a look of utter relief. “Yes, you’re back. You’re here.”
“I saw him,” she whispered frantically, trying to sit up, trying to leave the bed as if it were made of searing coal. Adrial kept her from doing so with a gentle embrace. Her actions reminded me of someone afflicted with a night-terror. “I saw him!” she shrieked, ignoring Adrial’s pleading to remain on the bed. “No, let go; we have to do something!”
Her resistance grew hostile, and as their struggle intensified Adrial commanded me to fetch a sedative. As I turned and hurried for the hall, a ping from attica alerted everyone that another vis-capture had been added to the Eschatis thread.
I froze on the threshold, looking back at Adrial to observe his reaction to the update. He held Aela’s flailing, screaming form beneath him. “Don’t you dare,” he warned me. “We need to get her stabilized first!”
Yes, right.
I sprinted out and toward the Apothecary. All the while, Aela’s screams reverberated through the hall. She kept saying the same thing, over and over.
“It all comes together as one! It all comes together as one! It all comes together—”
***
Qaira Eltruan—;
It all comes together as one.
And then there was Aela, awakening at the precise moment we’d cracked the message, only to scream the exact same thing. I’d spent a fucking week in RQ4 with no sleep and barely any food, only for the answer to be delivered to us anyway. I should have squandered the time shooting at dummies. Just goes to show that the Cosmos was a frigid cunt.
But I was too exhausted to be angry. Instead I sat there in the Reliquary, after being herded in like cattle, waiting to watch another movie. A final vis-capture had been added to Aela’s thread, and Adrial wanted all of us to view it at once. I should have been excited, but I wasn’t. Just frazzled.
According to Yahweh, Aela was sedated and resting after she’d nearly clotheslined Adrial upon coming out of whatever she’d been in. As if she hadn’t rested enough. I’d inquired if either of them had the common sense to ask what the fuck ‘It all comes together as one’ meant before knocking her out, but of course they hadn’t. To them, she’d been prattling nonsense. And to be fair, they weren’t wrong.
The four of us sat there in front of the lectern holosphere, looking like we’d crawled out of a nuclear war. We’d smoothed out all the wrinkles before Leid had come home, and now all we had to do was watch this capture and then everything would be done. Everything would be fine.
Except none of us wanted to watch it, and it showed on our faces. The hesitation was drawn out as we shifted in our seats, rubbed our eyes, massaged our temples.
“Are we ready?” asked Adrial.
Silence.
Adrial nodded, exhaled, and played the feed.
THE LONELY WAYFARER
3884b-444//~69.yy8rpm
Insipian Algo-54(encrypted)
Resonance Contributor(s):
1.Aela Dilusin__/_
THE SILENCE IS CONDEMNING.
The first few steps I take forward echo around me, as if I’m not in an expanse but an enclosure. There is a mounting sense of wrongness—dread, coupled with the feeling that I don’t belong here. I am jaded by the wasted effort of my pilgrimage. My reward for overcoming Ikhtar’s trial is a voidal sprawl.
To what end?
I pick a direction and begin to walk, looking back only once to find the gate has vanished. This scares me, as gates don’t usually vanish—at least they don’t in the sprawl I’m most familiar with. I hasten my pace, hoping to come across something, anything that may exhibit life or sentience. And, as my journey begins to feel like another pilgrimage in itself, I worry that nothing exists here. Time is warped in Eschatis; however, I’d never gone this long without seeing something in the last sprawl. I am wracked by an overwhelming need to escape, even though there is nothing to escape from. My senses are confused. I am confused.
My gait quickens further. I am now at a light jog.
Qaira, can you hear me?
Nothing, although I am not surprised. I could very well receive a response a lifetime later, or three events ago.
I am no longer curious about anything here; I just want out. My trek continues to the rhythm of a cyclical, internal prayer that a waystation will manifest at any moment. Just as all hope dwindles, I see something off in the distance: the silhouette of an object. It’s large enough to peak on the hazy, dim horizon. I dart toward it, eyes wide in desperation of a possible escape.
But it’s only a jagged spear, jutting from the ground. It stands roughly fifty feet high, and although it appears to be a natural land formation, it’s not made of athanasian. No, it’s obsidian. Exodian, to be exact. I can recognize that sheen anywhere.
There are things inside of it, conveying moving images like a window, or reflective glass. I can’t see exactly what its presenting; each time I try to get closer than twenty feet, an eruption of dejection and misery brings me to my knees and I can do nothing but sob into my hands. The frustration of not being able to closely observe the spear’s surface is short lived. A train begins to form from the base of the spear, snaking off into the distance. This one isn’t blue. It’s metallic in color.
Silver.
I don’t follow it right away, only stare in puzzlement. The urgent feeling of needing an escape is thwarted by the peculiarity of the train and the caution regarding where it might lead, given the source of its existence.
But there is no path to take other than forward, and reluctantly I walk further into the expanse, alongside the train. Not long after, I realize something is about to happen. The Eschatian flecks return in a flurry around me and more objects materialize in the distance, through the veil of fog that’s suddenly clothed the landscape. I inch forward, gingerly.
The train disappears several feet later. I continue my approach.
The fog lifts, and then the scenery presents itself: a deactivated gate, cold hearth, and wayfarer seated in front of it with their back facing me.
The painting.
“H-Hello?” I call, my right hand already semi-clenched in preparation of a sudden life-threatening situation. The man visibly starts, surprised by my voice. His posture straightens, and he slowly gets to his feet.
I manage to take two more steps forward before he turns around.
At the sight of his face, I reel back with a soft gasp.
He flinches in response, the pain behind his eyes alluding to this already happening before. His eyes—still the same as I saw them last, but not. Voltaic eyes; silver, laced with wild, orange embers.
Proxy Ascendant.
Zira.
“What…” I breath, unable to understand anything that is happening. “Why…?”
The light from his eyes fade and he turns his back to me, resuming his place on the bench in front of the cold hearth. I am left standing there, stunned, looking around us. The dead sky. The dead hearth. The silence.
When my gaze settles back on him, he says, “I’d offer you some tea, but sadly I ran out a while ago.”
“Why are you here?” I manage.
“I ask myself the same thing every moment.”
“T-This is the future. You’re a Proxy Ascendant.”
“You’re only half right. If I were what you say I am, then I wouldn’t be here, would I?”
I walk to the bench so that I can see his face. Zira’s stare remains ahead. I kneel beside him, though choose to keep an arm’s length between us. “You’re a wayfarer.”
He doesn’t respond.
“Did you die and come here, like Cassima?”
“No.”
“Then you left us of your own accord?”
His eyes meet mine, wild, furious. “Left you? I tried to save us, and now I’m the last.”
My heart leaps into my throat.
“There’s nothing left. Not here, not out there, not anywhere!”
His anger makes me fall back with a cry. I cower away as he sighs and covers his face with his hands. He then begins to laugh into them, shaking his head. There is something wrong with this Zira.
“You came all this way, Aela, for the umpteenth time. I’ve lost count how many of you I’ve seen. That’s my punishment. I’m here to ferry you all to our demise. Keep the cycle going.”
Zira leaves the bench and stalks toward me, his hands balling into fists. I scoot backward, trying to scramble to my feet. His expression is a coalescence of pain and fury. It is clear he went insane a long time ago.
“Now you have your answers. Is your curiosity sated, Aela? Was your pilgrimage worth the trouble? All of this, everything; it all comes together as one.”
He grabs the hood of my coat and I swing at him. He catches my fist, pulling me forward so that our faces are inches apart. His look is placid. “Until next time.”
A crushing sensation assaults my temples, and my knees buckle. Before I feel myself hit the ground, everything turns white. Warm.
0
Adrial Trisyien—;
“YOU’VE CERTAINLY KEPT BUSY,” said Leid, kicking her feet onto my desk. She swirled the red wine in her glass, flashing me a tiny grin. Her attempt to get a rise out of me by acting so laissez-fair (and stealing my seat) was impressive, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. She’d seen the stream. She knew. But if she wanted to pretend, I’d humor her.
“How was the Halon Conference?” I asked.
“Tough crowd,” she said, frowning. “Most of the civs are far ahead of the other universes we cater to. In fact, we’ll need to revise our scale. As it stands, eighty percent of the things we specialize in are of no use to alpha-Insipians.”
“Then we need to stop campaigning, and start surveying.”
“I whole-heartedly agree,” she said, lighting a cigarette and taking a moment to exhale. “I’m thinking of sending Pariah and Mehrit to Ash’kinar, once her training is finished. That would be a good way to ease into her role. Once we collect enough demographics, we’ll find a business niche.”
“You have this all figured out, don’t you?”
“Always. And thank you.”
I lifted a brow. “For?”
“Taking care of everything while I was gone.”
I sank into the chair usually reserved for my guests. “You don’t have to thank me for doing my job.”
“But I will, because you deserve my gratitude.”
I cast her a quizzical look, and she only smiled. I hadn’t a clue what that had meant, but Leid was simply strange sometimes. As the silence intensified, I could no longer take it. “Are you really going to sit there and act like we didn’t just prove that the collective subconscious exists, and that it was created by an ancient machine race?”
Leid tapped her chin. “But who created the machines?”
“Exactly.”
“Obviously more research is in order, but I daren’t send anyone for a while.”
Covenants: Quantum Dream (Hymn of the Multiverse Book 11) Page 15