Seven Point Eight

by Marie Harbon

  “It is time,” he said.

  Tahra had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Time for what?” she questioned, spinning around to see if he stood behind there, but there was no one there.

  She turned to face the mirror, sensing something on the horizon…something out of her hands, something that had already been decided… something significant.

  Tahra joined Paul at the table in the kitchen after her shower, with a towel still wrapped around her head. For some reason, she couldn’t tell him about the visitation she’d just received but he assumed her expression merely reflected the jitters before the first major expedition. He poured her a cup of tea and set a few slices of toast in front of her. She smiled and nibbled the toast, finding no great appetite.

  “Max is overseeing this expedition,” Paul informed her.

  Tahra failed to feel enthusiastic about his visit.

  “He won’t arrive until tomorrow morning though,” Paul added, “so it won’t disturb our…nocturnal activities.”

  At least it meant no over-night stay. Max’s presence at the farmhouse still had the potential to rattle her nerves, especially due to the secrecy of her relationship with Paul.

  “I’m considering a change to the operation of the machine,” he continued.

  “What are you proposing?”

  “To compensate for having twelve bodies in there, plus you, I’d like to increase the intensity of the field to seventy five percent.”

  “Has the machine operated at that level before?” she asked.

  Paul poured another cup of tea, emptying the pot.

  “Everything runs smoothly at sixty-five percent, so I don’t foresee any problems increasing the intensity by another ten percent. It may act as a boost, plus we need to impress Max and the funding bodies.”

  Tahra raised her eyebrows.

  “Was this Max’s idea really?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered, quickly. “I’ve been giving it some serious thought. It feels right but I wanted to run it by you first.”

  “I see no reason why not,” she said.

  “Good. We run at seventy-five percent then.”

  Later that night, after the final day of maintenance tests, Paul held a final meeting with the crew and found everyone in a buoyant mood. They understood Max would attend to supervise the expedition, and Paul wished his team the best of luck. Once they’d all retired for the night, he and Tahra relaxed in the bedroom, trying to watch television.

  “I’m not really concentrating,” Tahra said, “you may as well switch it off.”

  Paul obliged and slid under the blankets, joining her in a state of reflection and anticipation. They lay under the covers, wide awake, unable to think of anything else but the next day’s events.

  “I can’t sleep,” Paul complained. “I keep wondering if something will go wrong, yet I’m surging with adrenaline because I want it to blow us away.”

  Tahra looked over at him and smiled.

  “I know of something we can do to relax,” she said, and reached over with her hand to arouse him.

  He laughed, enjoying her touch and rolled on top of her.

  “I’m the luckiest goddamn man on this planet,” he declared, and using his lips, he worked his way down her body.

  After a prolonged and intense bout of love making, they fell into a deep sleep, ready for OOBE’s first major expedition.

  ***

  They both awoke the next morning with a tingle of anticipation. The day had arrived, heralding the climax they’d striven for and the realisation of Paul’s vision. When the whole team gathered around the breakfast table, with multiple racks of toast, and tea and coffee to be consumed, Paul soaked up the excitement. On top of the world was an understatement. With morale at a high, no one wanted to refuse the trip and even Tahra appeared confident, even though she needed to tow a whole team this time.

  Max arrived at 11:00am, two hours clear of the start time to debrief on the progress made so far and the schedule for the day. Tahra watched as they disappeared into the study, detecting an odd underlying tension in the air, however, she kept the recruits motivated and confident in the meantime. The two men emerged an hour later, their expressions giving little away and Tahra wondered what they’d been discussing. Paul gave her a surreptitious wink while Max mustered a quick cursory glance in her direction, finding she’d returned to her conversation with Emile and Nicholas.

  Paul and Max fired up the machine briefly, detecting no faults so Tahra and the recruits filtered into the barn one at a time, having just finished a light lunch. Tahra arranged them in a circle before they stepped into the machine, and decided to make a speech.

  “Let’s take a moment to reflect how far we’ve come,” she began. “Consider the worlds we’ve seen, contemplate how these experiences have altered our perspective, our concept of reality. We stand at the threshold of a much deeper and greater programme of exploration. Soon, we’ll make further meaningful contact with beings that inhabit these other worlds, treading where our ancestors walked on a regular basis. Maybe we’ll find worlds they’ve never encountered before. This is what I believe to be ‘satus’, the origin, the beginning of humanity’s journey. Now let’s go and visit the goddess.”

  Everyone bowed their heads, showing reverence for the beings of these worlds, and the ancestors who walked with the Gods. Once they’d paid their due respects, each recruit looked around the circle, feeling fired up emotionally and physically.

  All twelve stepped into the machine, filling the seats in a clockwise direction and Tahra lingered briefly on the outside, glancing at Paul and Max who stood in the control booth. She nodded to indicate her readiness, took a deep breath and entered the machine, taking the last empty seat. The recruits looked towards her and she smiled, taking hold of Peter and Beth’s hands, who sat on her right and left. The others followed suit and joined hands, forming a tightly knit circle.

  Paul entered the machine and hooked up the monitoring equipment, placing electrodes on their heads to measure their brain waves and on their chest to ensure their heart rates remained within accepted norms. When he felt satisfied with the hook up, he retreated to the booth, where Max watched the proceedings, arms folded and finger on chin.

  “Are you sure the visit to this world will yield the results I desire?” he asked.

  “I’m positive the goddess will impart some knowledge,” Paul answered.

  “The funding bodies are particularly interested in some useable technology. Only this will ensure the viability of the project in terms of sustained investment.”

  Paul began to push the first buttons, and twiddle the first dials.

  “I understand, but you need to give us time, this is only the beginning.”

  He turned his attention back to the people inside the machine.

  “Are you ready?” Paul spoke into the microphone.

  A chorus of ‘yes’ greeted him through the speakers. He hunted around for the machine’s signature song, leaving the recruits querying the reason for the delay among themselves. After a short while, he gave his apologies.

  “Um, I can’t find the record I usually play,” he said. “Does anyone know where I last put ‘Good Vibrations’?”

  Inside the machine, Tahra tried to look nonchalant but found it hard to suppress a giggle. The twelve recruits acknowledged her guilt and smirked: who wasn’t sick of ‘Good Vibrations’?

  “Just power up the field!” they called out.

  Paul shrugged, feeling disappointed the machine’s theme song had mysteriously disappeared, especially on such an important day, but he booted up the sequence of frequencies and powered up the field.

  Looking at the incremental settings for the pulsed electromagnetic field, he set the intensity to seventy-five percent as agreed with Tahra. As Max pointed out, he was the project manager and therefore responsible for such decisions.

  Inside the machine, the occupants felt the customary buzzing and tingl
ing throughout their bodies, and the familiar feeling of paralysis. Tahra closed her eyes and immediately became aware of twelve manifestations of consciousness, twelve presences, and twelve orbs of light. However, this time, she sensed something more substantial. Ignoring any questions raised by her gut instinct, she visualised scooping up her friends’ consciousnesses and focused on the destination of the Goddess Realm.

  The transition between worlds packed a punch this time, and provided a vivid experience. Tahra sensed a huge rush, as if she’d been injected with a divine stimulant coupled with the caffeine from several cups of coffee. Looking around, she found herself floating in some kind of nether world, consisting of bright orange outlines of tessellated hexagons.

  My team, where’s my team?

  Tahra searched for the twelve orbs of light she had the responsibility of guiding, and discovered vibrant human energy forms staring back at her. Everyone had a body composed of pure energy with concentrations of radiance around the brain and heart, plus channels of electricity flowing like a vascular system of light. Some energy bodies were green or blue, or composites with pinks and lilacs, or yellows and orange, so the scene looked like semi-mixed luminous paint splatters. Looking down, she discovered her own energy body, a composite of deep red and purple.

  “What is this?” she thought, aloud.

  “This ain’t ever happened before,” Angelina added.

  “We should be in the Goddess Realm,” Tahra pointed out, getting worried. “Why aren’t we there? What’s happening?”

  Tahra felt something extract her from this nether world, pulling her away with a force too strong to resist. She watched the twelve energy bodies of her friends fade into the distance and instinctively, she reached out her arms, attempting to cast her protective net.

  I’m losing them.

  Oh no, they’re scattering in all directions.

  What’s happening?

  I can’t resist…I can’t control what’s happening.

  Everything blurred and the hexagonal grid stretched and distorted before her eyes. Tahra felt sick to the pit of her stomach. What would happen to her friends? How would Paul feel when she revealed she’d failed the mission? Worse still, how would Max react?

  However, a world solidified from the grid, as if someone twisted a camera lens into focus. Instantly, she recognised it, a world where planets, stars, and nebulae filled the sky. She now stood in a world where the stars themselves seemed to communicate with each other, the land and water sparkled with an unknown iridescent substance, and the air itself shimmered with a kind of white noise, full of dancing and vibrating molecules of energy. Tahra had been here before. She’d emerged in the very first dimension she’d visited, which triggered a memory.

  One of the molecules of energy extruded from the background of noise and took a recognisable form. An entity approached her in a blazing white effigy of iridescence, the molecules of which cycled through different colours. Burning eyes accentuated its otherwise featureless face, and Tahra noticed the wings folded up on its back. It conveyed a sense of brilliance and power that both inspired and humbled her.

  “It is time,” the angel-like entity spoke.

  A feeling of dread overcame Tahra, coupled with a feeling of helplessness. She was trapped here.

  Meanwhile, back in the control booth, Paul became aware something had gone wrong. The machine behaved anomalously, displaying some unusual vibrations, which hadn’t occurred during prior tests. What the hell was going on? He checked the readouts of everyone’s EEGs and ECGs, finding them highly erratic.

  “This has never happened before,” Paul said, clearly confused.

  Max unfolded his arms and took a step forward, staring at the monitors.

  “There are seven of my best people in there,” he said, looking over at Paul.

  Looking at the dial, Paul began to regret his impetuous decision. He’d never run the field at anything above sixty-five percent with anyone in it, so why had he risked the unknown by increasing ten percent, on this day of all others? Why had he let money be the driving factor behind this particular voyage in the machine? His heart sank as he gazed at the monitors, because all he saw was static.

  “Visuals are down. I can’t see what’s happening. Shit!”

  Chaos reigned, and Paul felt his hands drift to his face in horror. This just didn’t any sense, what difference could an extra ten percent make?

  “Cut the field,” Max said, without hesitation.

  “I’m going in to check on them myself,” Paul said. “I hate not knowing what’s happening.”

  “Just cut the field,” Max repeated.

  Paul rushed to the hatch and used the emergency release to pop it open. What he saw became imprinted on his memory. The field had produced a shimmering haze, something he’d never encountered before. Without thinking, he reached out to touch it, discovering a strong electro-static buzz. Looking beyond it, he barely saw Tahra and the twelve recruits, as something had happened to their bodies at a molecular level. The intensity of the field, or some unknown force had created a state of semi-invisibility.

  Max perceived the shimmering electro-static field from the control booth, as it began to radiate out from the machine in a spheroid haze. Glancing around at the dials, sliders, and buttons, he stared at the monitor, which displayed static. With Paul in a stupor, he needed to act.

  Outside the booth, Paul stood frozen momentarily, his only concern for Tahra in an altered molecular state. Regardless of how illogical it seemed and against his better judgment, he stepped into the machine, desperate to drag her out. However, as soon as he’d done so, he regretted it. The field dragged his consciousness from his body, while a sense of physical paralysis overpowered him. Paul found himself in a position where he could help no one.

  Meanwhile, Tahra faced the angel-like entity. Its burning eyes bore right through her, as if reaching into her soul with fiery fingers. She tried to tear her gaze away, and for a moment, she caught a glimpse of silvery snakes worming their way across the sky, and the stars flashing in a cyclical manner. Multiple planets rotated slowly upon their axis, and the iridescent landscape glistened.

  “Where is this?” she asked, hoping for a clearer answer this time.

  The entity spoke although no lips moved, its voice rang clear in her head.

  “You have been brought to the quantum fire level,” it explained, “a place only a highly advanced traveller can find. You now exist at the most fundamental level of dark matter in the universe.”

  “If it’s so difficult to find, then why am I here?”

  “Because I brought you here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is time,” the entity clarified.

  “What is it time for?” Tahra pressed, realising the inevitable approached.

  “Satus.”

  A realisation struck Tahra.

  “You spoke to me at Jupiter, didn’t you? We’ve already begun the journey, haven’t we?”

  The angelic entity remained patient and dignified.

  “You haven’t yet tapped the full meaning of this word, for it is more than a word.”

  “Are you going to help me understand?”

  “Yes, for there is something you need to do,” it continued.

  “What if I don’t want to do it?”

  “You have free will, therefore I cannot force you, but I believe you will give your consent. You will receive something in return to help you with this task.”

  Tahra felt more reassured by the fact she had free will.

  “Tell me what this task is.”

  “I will show you,” it said.

  The entity reached out and plunged its white fiery limb into her manifestation of consciousness, that dark red and purple powerhouse of energy. She looked down and saw how brightly it glowed now, but the entity’s actions became extremely painful and Tahra felt as if its fiery limb split her in two. In her mind’s eye, she saw a whole sequence of events, a clear plan…a purpose for
her existence and on viewing it, she almost cried.

  “Will you help?” the entity asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  As soon as she’d consented, the pain increased in intensity to the point where she couldn’t bear it. She screamed, hoping this temporary distress would be compensated by the gift she’d receive.

  Am I dying?

  Did I sacrifice my life for a greater purpose?

  The pain exceeded the grief caused by the machine elves, and as it overpowered her, leaving her to sense oblivion, the world of quantum fire began to dissolve in her vision. She saw a black void, free of hexagons, free of the grid, and free of any pain. A single point of light grew steadily in the distance and she felt a reassuring presence.

  I’m dying.

  I sacrificed my life for a greater purpose.

  I consented, I’ve already stepped beyond the point of no return.

  Meanwhile, back in the machine, Paul lay incapacitated on the floor. At this altered molecular level, the physical forms of the recruits became inconsistent, and cycled through brief moments of solidity before they dissolved into a state of semi-invisibility again.

  Without warning, the field powered down, the machine barn fell into darkness and the emergency lighting flickered into life. Max had killed the power at the main switch, being the only person capable of decisive action. Paul lay on the floor of the machine, feeling movement return to his physical body. Looking over, he witnessed everyone returning to a state of solidity. Tahra gazed ahead, as if staring into space like the others, and a wave of guilt grabbed Paul by the guts because of what they’d just endured.

  “Tahra?” he called out.

  For a moment, he thought she’d fallen into a trance. However, on hearing her name, she jolted as if receiving an electric shock and a minute later, she turned to face him, clearly distressed. Paul stumbled over to her and embraced her with relief.