The ship rose swiftly, like the multi-directional high-velocity elevators of the early 2020’s. It tingled their sense of motion with a forward speed that could chase a diving bird. After a few hundred feet the thrusters kicked in shooting them into the sky like a rocket. Amy gazed out, and up, and all around, ecstatically. Even most of the floor was translucent. She forgot about piloting it for a minute—there was too much to take in—and devoured the new experience.
Jim watched her. And although a part of him was dying inside, he smiled seeing her happy. And, he knew she’d be begging to drive again in a minute or so.
The town disappeared below. It became a greenish-tan speck in the middle of a vast desert of pale tans and blotchy whites. Jim saw the road leading to Felix’s secret, and the canyon, and the green world beyond as they veered away in the opposite direction. Everything faded away until nothing man made was distinguishable; the earth, this map of it he thought, was stunningly beautiful and complete in every detail.
Greg let Amy have the controls as they reached 40,000 feet. He intentionally let it free-fall creating a feeling of weightlessness. The controls changed hands. Amy followed up with a 10,000 feet dive then pulled on the joysticks. The craft skyrocketed. She worked the controls as if a dormant habit had reactivated—like a flashbulb in her mind. After their facial skin had retracted she took them for a nauseating loop. The passengers were all surprised, even Jim. She was a natural, or had previously learned—perhaps in a natural dream. That had to be it. The ship had pep, lots of it and Amy kicked it into high gear. It wasn’t long until the others realized that she would make one hell of an ace pilot. Jim, he already knew it, for she was good at anything she did. They let her zoom anywhere she wanted to for a good twenty minutes.
Jim turned to Eddie who seemed to be enjoying himself on the stomach twisting ride. He didn’t mind, but began to wonder and asked, “Eddie, why do we need a ship to go anywhere? I mean this is just a map, why have this, any of this? The portal or whatever it is could be in the town, or at least a short ride beyond. Why all of this?”
“Jim, I guess the answer is—why not?” Eddie replied. Both of them swayed side to side in the harness because Amy was mastering another trick maneuver. “When you have everything, why make it nothing?”
Jim thought about that, deeply, and turned to look out at the earth below. The ride reminded him of the virtual rides of his youth, in the big city, so bright and clean and magnificent and safe, with countless over-friendly robots walking about. He recalled how the bots even enjoyed the rides themselves while sitting in company of their owners. He remembered it all. How infrastructure became less necessary as everything went virtual. The old roller coasters his father had told him about, with real wheels, and tracks—that was something he’d never experienced. This was closer to the real thing than any ride he could remember. He thought about what Eddie said again, and looked over at him. Eddie was watching Amy with a big smile, and, really enjoying the shit out of the wild-ass ride. Yes, he had a job to do. They, whoever made all of this, yes they could’ve just made it simple, boring, because everything’s been experienced before. But there continues to be breathing thinking individuals, who want to live—although living itself had been, and was continuing to be, redefined.
“It’s time Amy,” Greg said. “It’s time to go, if you're ready.” She nodded, coming out of her euphoric trance. She could've continued for hours more, but let go of the yoke and the ship fell slightly. The elation stayed with her.
Greg pulled back and took it into space. He said, “It’s going to be quite a ride. We’ll be going to light speed and beyond, into a wormhole, and we’ll end up, on the other side of the universe. It won’t take long and soon we’ll be at our destination.”
Jim understood, at least as much as he could: the wormhole—wow, a wormhole, he thought—and the trip was a part of the show, which provided experiences and memories, substance. Sure, perhaps a simple portal could've been placed right outside the Old Town map, but life, what life they had to live, would be dull. But then again, like Felix and Q had said: the world has rules. Maybe, just maybe, there was more to it.
59. Wormhole
They passed the Moon, and shortly after, planet Mars, sling-shotting around both. The ship was going fast enough to make stars resemble one-inch needles of light. Jupiter came into view with its orange and red churning brilliance; a small white moon could be seen: Europa, spewing its icy geysers. The ship swung around the largest planet accelerating much faster than it had from the previous two. Saturn and the rest weren’t to be seen. A green-to-white gauge on the front panel read 1/2 light speed. It was in the middle glowing lime-green, rising slowly and steadily. Another yellow-to-red gauge aside it denoted the warp factor; it was bottomed out near the yellow reading only: 2.25.
The view from inside was a captivating mesmerizing lucidity thief. It could be described as being strapped into a rocket powered chair, completely naked, exposed to billions of twinkling starlight eyes. At least that’s how Jim felt, like a nude nanoparticle. All and nothing could be seen in any direction he decided to look; the universe doing what it does best: grandstanding, a big showoff. It was dizzying and dazzling concurrently. He turned to look back because he felt the need for an anchor. He couldn’t tell which way was up or down and his eyes tortured their sockets searching for direction; his neck muscles also received a workout. He couldn’t find the sun or any trace of a solar system, nothing but stars—everywhere. One was brighter, like Venus on the horizon before sunrise; he guessed that was the Sun. But his sudden nervousness was squashed about as soon as it’d emerged, and he looked straight up, put his head on the headrest, and examined the Milky Way galaxy above. The simulations of his youth had nothing on this. From then out he decided to relax and enjoy the ride, for as long as he could. He thought of Amy; the longer the better.
Beside him Eddie started doing some calculations on a swing-out screen. Amy held onto her deactivated joysticks, examining every detail. Greg had both hands on, the wheel.
“Almost there,” Eddie said loudly. “On my mark, 28 seconds.” Amy looked questionably to Greg and he pointed to the panel. He waved his hand in a flicking motion and the map floated to her side of the layout. The ship started to vibrate, very slightly, almost too subtle to notice. Amy said something like, Wow, as she studied the layout in front of her. Jim tried to make it out looking over her shoulder, but only saw something large, spherical, and brown.
“Where?” Jim asked. There was nothing out there, not a thing. Almost—nowhere, he thought sarcastically. They’d passed a hazy cloud fifteen seconds ago, but it was nothing significant; there were no apparent destinations. The stars in the distance that looked like horizontal streaks were now a little longer, about six inches. The skid-marks they’d become was the only way to discern velocity. A few colorful areas of the galaxy stood out in the distance, purplish-red and blotchy against the pitch-dark outer space.
“We’ll be doing a big U-TURN Jim, you won’t see but a glimpse of it.”
“20 seconds.”
“Of what?” Jim asked.
“Solitarion,” Eddie said. Their seats shivered on the approach. “It’s brown dwarf star that orbits our sun.” Jim was taken aback by the idea and Eddie kept calculating seriously. He knew there had always been talk of a planet, or even a small star, but as much as scientists had tried, even with the tech of the mid twenties, were never been able to pinpoint anything. Merely it was a mathematical anomaly. He recalled a ship, named WARP-1 that was supposed to— Hold on, this is just a map, right? Speculation? Jim thought. A show, that’s all it is. What in the world am I thinking!
Greg interrupted his thoughts counting, “And 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, mark!”
“There it is!” Amy yelled. Jim looked left, and it was massive. The ship began to roll and the marvel became their ceiling. A brown dwarf star! There were brown cloudy bands, and between them hot burning lava-red strips. The colors and textures gave it great
depth, as if the darker colors floated, riding magma. And like Jupiter it had spots, brown torrents convalesced with black, devouring the brighter glowing red streams. It was the Sun through a set of solar glasses, just as violent, but Jupiter at the same time—a Brobdingnagian handful of both mashed together. Then, like a lasso, a looping orange band was ejected from the surface. It split the brown cloudy bands creating new streaks of agitation.
“Captivating,” Jim said to himself.
Greg manually controlled the ship, steering so its path matched a depicted course on his illuminated dash panel. Around Solitarion they left behind a streaking trail of white and teal that painted a ring around the brown dwarf. It wasn’t more than a few seconds and they were on the opposite side of it, and—a planet could be seen!
“A planet, look Jim!” Amy yelled again. Jim marveled at it, and he noticed another also. The first was relatively close to the star, at least from his perspective: it was rocky, possibly ablaze in sections. The second was quite large and gleamed deep-blue, like Earth without land. It reflected the dim light of the brown giant beautifully—more brightly than expected. On the surface around its center he saw a tall white wedge-like band—a ceaseless wave of water? Tiny white strings that Jim guessed were clouds wrapped it like cotton threads and thickened near the bleach-white top and bottom. It had at least six small moons, orbiting deadly close. He could see the panel affront them which Amy, being her considerate self, had moved to the middle. It displayed details of the nearby worlds, and their trajectory.
Eddie removed an eye from his screen momentarily and noticed Jim’s jaw was open. A stream of drool was sliding along the side of his face toward his ear. The velocity of the ship increased. Eddie smiled.
“This is amazing!” Amy yelled a third time. “I see planets, over there.”
“There are six planets that orbit Solitarion, with many moons about each, “Eddie replied.
“That’s Ternus Jim. It’s teaming with life—a water world. In case you’re wondering, that’s an endless tidal wave banding it, six thousand feet tall. Things really stay agitated near the center.” Jim was grabbing his armrests tightly as Eddie pointed over him. The ship leveled out and the planet disappeared from view.
“It—” Jim tried, but couldn’t speak.
“On my mark again, in 3, 2, 1,” Eddie said abruptly cutting off Jim's stutter. “Hang on, you’re really gonna feel this one. We’ll be going close to the speed of light in a few. It’ll be a little bumpy but will smooth out around warp 4. Mark!”
Greg tapped a flashing button on his panel and the ship rocketed away from the star. This time the G-force was felt; it squeezed every blood cell like a sat-on balloon. Even with gravity noise cancellation at maximum there was no way to completely absolve the pressing force. Minuscule blood vessels popped in their eyes and breathing was tight. The ship neared: light speed, and the gauge for it now read 0.98; almost solid white; with only an atomic tinge of green it glowed brightly. The ship was vibrating like Felix’s truck on the washboard dirt road. The warp factor gauge read: 3, and as the value continued to climb the graph its progress slowed. Numeration on the gauge went from 1 to 10 and the numbers nestled themselves closer together as they neared the top. The light speed gauge hit 0.99 and a green light illuminated atop the gauge—MAX. The warp gauge continued its climb. Around them the stars were stretched from front to back, completely. They got brighter and thicker, coalescing with one another as the warp gauge continued its climb. Everything started to curve around the craft making it feel like a racing bubble in an unreal cosmic distortion.
The vibration ceased as they passed warp 4, just as Eddie had said it would. But, things got weird.
“What’s that light ahead?” Amy asked to Greg, finally able to speak. But he was too busy keeping the ship on path, which seemed to get more difficult for him as the warp meter increased. He’d turned off the automation, as if, perhaps, only a living being, with a consciousness, could navigate such distortions.
Jim noticed that her voice sounded hollow. He also noticed his hands as he waved them side to side in front of his face. They moved like a film strip with a slow frame rate. Amy was studying herself as well, moving her arms in front of her face. The warp meter read: 6.
“W-h-a-t-s h-a-p-p-e-n-i-n-g?” Jim asked, trying to get his words out. His thoughts were clear, unaffected, but his physical motions were choppy; even turning his head to Eddie seemed to flicker using less and less frames as the warp meter increased. Inside the ship, everything got bright.
“I-t-s t-h-e S-u-n.” Eddie pointed directly ahead. His hand appeared to rise in three frames as he lifted it. The light got brighter. Could we be on a crash course into the sun, Jim thought clearly. His thoughts were so clear, more so than ever perhaps, but everything else was now exceedingly choppy. And it got even brighter still, so bright he could barely see Eddie next to him. He looked like a white shadow. The warp gauge continued to creep, 8, 9,—10!
A flash, a humming in my ears, high-pitched ringing from deep within my mind, bright white, blinding, but harmonious? A weird warbling hum is echoing within the ship like a constant pluck from the thick guitar string, the humming of physical matter, sounds, sights, smells, melds with the ringing in my conscious mind. You are here—welcome, to nowhere. But nowhere is somewhere, it has to be. Nothing is something. Nothing never existed, I am the essence of nothing, which is, and always was, something. It’s paradoxical, but inside this tunnel not completely. Only residual leaking from its edges graze me, a mere sample, a taste. I feel it on every level.
I have an anxiety, that I don’t like. Things moving faster, faster—inside my mind. It’s really quite an eerie feeling. I know I’m not within the universe anymore, the entire thing—gone, it never existed, but it did, once. And now I know everything, but I also know, that I won’t soon. No surplus can exit.
So I’m nowhere, but, also everywhere at the same time. But there is no time, no progression, or regression either, no direction, and especially no entropy.
Flash!
Where am I now? I’m in my apartment. I’m looking at Amy’s file. Day 1. I see myself from above, yet from within during the same moment. I—I see my future, and past. I feel my anger and hatred. I see time as peaks and valleys and this is a peak, the highest of them all. Tell myself, but how? What? Don’t get up. Tell myself what I know now. Who? Him, tell him. That’s me. I can—prevent… But how!? Give him a sign! Stay there. Reach for it, quick make him look at the—
Back.
It’s, it’s too—it’s too bright. I am Jim—no I’m not. I am anxious, very. It’s haunting, tormenting me. A feeling—faster-and-faster, gnawing at my mind. I’m clawing, trying to reach for it, to grab it, reality. But, my arms aren’t moving. I can’t make them move. I want reality back!
Wait—there’s a point, straight ahead. Colorful walls, this tunnel has—if I make it so. Or, I can make it black, dark. I can change the edges. Make them swirly, paste photos onto the sides, memories. My consciousness, it can affect the edge of the wall, just as the edge of the wall is revealing to me a sample of some sort of paradoxical material.
I’m pulling at my face. No I’m not. My arms, still cannot move. The point ahead, I see it, but it didn't change, not ever and it won’t, forever timelessly it’s just a dot and we will never reach it. Wait—it is growing and we are getting closer. No, we’re already inside of it, but we’re also still here, still here in this, limbo. How is this possible? But I know, now, anything is possible. I do know it. The consciousness mixes with it—blends with that stuff out there. That’s how it all works. And my consciousness must choose, because I have that power.
I choose…to get out, to enter it. Who said that! The chaos of my mind, scary, but revealing.
Flash!
A swimmer drowning and reaching for air, the surface—life. I—am—going—to—die!
Flash!
The darkness is coming, getting larger, that point is sucking us through. A mutual decisi
on, yes, that’s what it took! We all subconsciously agreed, but the choice had already been made before we entered. It’s growing, getting larger. I’ve never seen anything so black. The darkest entity imaginable, larger, encompassing. It’s, going to swallow us. Nooooooo!
FLASH!
Greg said, “We’re in!”
“Fuck!” Jim shook his head and took in a deep breath. Equally freaked out, but in a good way, Amy loved it.
Light, colors everywhere! A painter’s stew of every possible hue—swirling colors coated the glossy inner wall of the tube-like tunnel.
“But I thought we were already in the…” Jim said still shaking his head and blinking his eyes.
“Jim that was like a, pre-tunnel, before the wormhole,” Eddie explained. The ship was silent and moving swiftly and smoothly now. It was easy to talk. “Imagine it like a…like a bungee cord. We had to break time and space; it’s very elastic you know. The point, right as it breaks, that’s what you experienced. It gives you a tiny little taste of… Well, you decide what it is.”
It was enough information to stunt his brain—like a blender to the back of the neck, reeling on the spinal cord extirpating grey matter. And he didn’t want to reply. Jim watched the tunnel that surrounded them. Both he and Amy awed at it trance-like while Greg and Eddie managed some systems on their panels. Jim wiped the drool from both sides of his mouth.
Except for being intensely more vivid the walls of the tunnel reminded Jim of Jupiter's spot—before the probe of 2023 dissipated it causing riots within the science community. There were colors swirling about white glowing spots, congregating around and into them. It was difficult to tell how fast the ship was moving, and for a moment it even appeared to be stopped, or moving backwards. The only way to really tell was the tracking display on Greg’s panel. He glanced to see it. The gauge read: zero! What, we are sitting still!
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