Spheria

by Cody Leet

  “Well, we need your skills specifically. I already have great coders on the team. Anyway, as I was about to ask, are you interested in the job?”

  “Totally!”

  “At least you're consistent.” He cracked a smile. “I agree you're a great fit. I just have to get final approval from the project sponsor and will let you know soon. Let me show you the coolest part on the way out.”

  “Thanks,” Min replied.

  “Follow me,” Max said. He got up and left the office. The camera rose and followed him out.

  The real Min pressed another button on the frame of her glasses. The video skipped ahead at quadruple speed. Max was weaving between cubicles and down a hallway like The Flash.

  “The most amazing thing you'll ever see is about to happen,” real Min said.

  “Seeing him smile is the most amazing thing I've ever seen!” Sheila quipped.

  “Stop it!” Min ordered.

  “Wait. Play it normal.” Min pressed a button and the video returned to real time.

  The camera focused on Max as he walked up to a large metal door.

  “Yes, that confirms it. He’s got an amazing ass. That’s prime eye candy.”

  “I mean it!” said Min.

  Max typed a code into a keypad near the door and it clicked. He turned the handle and pushed it open. The light from the room was blinding. The TV went completely white with over-saturation until the camera exposure compensated. Then walls on both sides of the room came into view. They emitted a massive amount of blue light interspersed with speckles of red. Max and Min entered what was shaped like a large walk-in closet, about fifteen feet long by eight feet wide.

  “I can see from your expression you're confused,” Max said. “Rightfully so. This is like nothing you've ever seen before. It’s not typical, but it’s our server room.”

  “I've seen server rooms before. They’re usually darker.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean. See that Qube in your hand?” Min opened her palm, not even realizing that she’d carried it from his office. “When those are powered up, they glow. These walls are covered with them. There are thousands. These are the core of the computer array.”

  The camera panned across the scene, and Min (and Sheila) could see that there were rectangular panels along the walls forming layers. They were like shutters, or shingles, or the flip panels at department stores displaying posters for sale. In fact, these were virtually identical to those, and Max began flipping them.

  “See, this setup allows us to pack in many more of these in this tight space and still gain access to them all. Each panel is three feet tall by one foot wide, and thus holds 300 Qubes. We have eight panels, four on each side, holding a total of 2,400 active Qubes. That’s how many thinking creatures we currently can have in our world at one time. But each Qube costs a lot to make, so this was all quite expensive. Luckily we were funded by an eccentric billionaire.”

  “Really, who’s that?” Min asked.

  “Graham Neilson,” Max answered.

  “No shit!” blurted Sheila. “He’s from my hometown. A living legend in Australia.”

  “… that’s the problem,” Max continued. “We’ve noticed that those Polyans that act disruptively tend to have a Qube that glows red. Those that behave neutrally glow a light pink. And those that seem cooperative glow blue. We gained this insight early by watching behaviors in our first set of prototype Polyans. Now we intentionally weed out the destructive ones.”

  “I don’t think I understand,” stated the recorded Min.

  “Yeah, it’s deep. Remember when I said the Qube is like the Polyan’s soul?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, the Polyans in our virtual world aren't built to be indestructible. In fact, we’ve created a rather hostile environment. They die all the time. So when they die, the associated Qube stops processing and blinks. What we then do is make it available for another Polyan, so that when a new one is born, the Qube is recycled. Or, to put it another way, resurrected. That’s actually more like the truth because the new Polyan inherits the previous one’s core personality traits. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Max searched the closest panel and pulled a flashing red Qube from it. “The blinking ones are connected to a deceased Polyan. They flash because they’re no longer receiving data.” He walked to the back of the room where a workbench supported a large computer screen and keyboard. Next to it, rising from the floor, was a round metal cylinder with a hinged lid. It was covered with thick red paint like a fire hydrant. Max pulled out a stool from under the workbench and sat down. He placed the Qube into a small docking device next to the computer. It began to glow a solid bright red.

  “See, this is an exceptionally nasty one. The computer screen here shows the values inside it as a curve.” Indeed, the display showed a grid with a series of icons horizontally along the middle. A shallow curve snaked along the bottom. The vertical scale went from negative one to positive one. The curve for this particular Qube was almost entirely at negative one.

  “I would hate to meet this one in a dark ally,” said Min.

  “That’s for sure. And we don’t want to subject the virtual population to this negativity either. So we choose not to reintroduce these bad ones into the world.”

  “How do you reset them?”

  “Unfortunately, that’s a limitation of using quantum phenomenon. We can’t clear the slate; the qubits have a permanent memory of their state. It can change over time, but can’t be cleared.”

  “So what do you do with them then?” asked Min.

  “Well, because they’re still functional processing units, we need to destroy them. We don’t want random people finding them in the trash. So this pillar here is a special incinerator we built.” He lifted the lid of the red hydrant-looking thing, revealing a small depression with vertical slits all around it. He removed the Qube from the computer stand and placed it inside the device. After closing the lid, he reached for a rubbery button on the side which read ‘Stop.’ “We salvaged this button from an old table saw, my idea. I think it’s an ironic play on words.” He pressed it. There was a click, followed by a fierce whooshing sound like a blowtorch. A moment later the sound ended and the pillar clicked again. Max opened the lid showing that the compartment was once again empty. He then pulled out a small tray from the base of the column. It was full of powdered charcoal dust. This he dumped in the trashcan beneath the workbench.

  “Yep, we destroy the bad ones. I guess in a way they burn for all eternity.”

  Min paused the video. “That was the good part.”

  “I have no idea what this guy is saying!” exclaimed Sheila. “He’s a total whack job if you ask me.”

  “Really? I think he’s hot,” argued Min.

  Chapter 8 - The Rift

  “I love studying folklore and legends. The stories that people passed down for a thousand years without any sort of marketing support are obviously saying something appealing about the basic human condition.” - Tim Schafer

  They made camp next to the Rift. Sa∙ma, using the pointy tip of his leg, traced a circle on the ground between them. Le∙ma removed the small yellow shard she’d been carrying strapped to her underside. She laid it on the ground inside the circle. Then she sat on the other side, facing Sa∙ma.

  They silently watched the Source fade above them and the world darken around them. All seemed quiet, calm, and a slight bit ominous. Normally, they’d be in their hives or gathered around the Colony center. Being in a group gave them a feeling of safety. Out here at the edge of the world, in the dark, they both were vulnerable and unsettled.

  Le∙ma tried to relax by taking everything in. In the dim light, the other side of the world looked different, like a negative image. They could see the mountain ranges on the opposite hemisphere like blue lines. Their maze-like meanderings twinkled as the glow from the red rivers illuminated them. In one area, an unusual formation of mountains created a large perfect triangle, with no rivers in
side. Le∙ma knew this, as everyone learned as a child, to be the Valley of Three. It was a fixture in the sky at night, something that Soldiers used to navigate by when it was dark.

  Le∙ma pointed at it. “What’s the Valley of Three?” she asked.

  “Nobody knows for sure,” replied Sa∙ma. “It's said that the gods go there to play games, as there’s not enough room for that in the Source. Sometimes, on certain nights, you can see them inside as flickering dots, moving about. What they’re actually doing there nobody knows, since a Polyan has never set foot on the opposite side of the world. As large as that triangle is, however, it's tiny compared to the formation we came here to see.”

  Le∙ma turned her focus to the Rift, looking over the edge into nothingness. She traced its path with her eyes as it curved upwards. From this position, she could see the entire chasm going off in two directions and circling the world. It divided it into two halves. It was insurmountably wide, about twenty times wider than the red river they’d crossed.

  “Every time I see it up close, and I've seen it hundreds of times, it takes my breath away,” said Sa∙ma.

  “I've never seen it up close like this. I heard many stories about the Rift, but none prepared me for its actual size. It makes me wonder how large the world is, and how small we are.”

  “These are typical feelings. This journey is one of learning and self-discovery. It’s to help you come to know yourself. Only by knowing oneself may you focus on helping others.”

  Sa∙ma fell silent. He watched as Le∙ma mulled over his words, knowing this was part of the process. She said nothing more. He’d given her a ton of information for one day to think about. Yet, they still had to perform the ritual they’d journeyed to complete.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Sa∙ma broke the silence. All he said was, “It's time for the offering.”

  Le∙ma, who’d become entranced by the yellow crystal, looked up. She nodded, rose to her feet and picked it up, as she had rehearsed. She walked to the edge of the Rift, and without hesitation, tossed it in.

  Sa∙ma appeared next to her. Together they watched the crystal fall, illuminating the walls below as it did so: brown rock, as far as the eye could see. It fell for a long distance, visible but getting smaller. It became just a dot, after which it grew too small and dim to see any longer. As far as Le∙ma could tell, it hadn’t reached the bottom.

  Sa∙ma began to hum. Le∙ma joined him. Then together they intoned the ancient verse:

  Deep into the Rift I go

  Lighting the path to nothingness

  Deep into the Rift I fall

  Shining like a spark of hope

  Deep into the Rift I plant

  A seed of yellow, sprouting

  Deep into the Rift I sprout

  Bringing forth a bubble of charge

  They were silent, staring down into the darkness as if expecting something to happen. Nothing did. Eventually, Sa∙ma turned to Le∙ma and said, “You're now a Lumen Seeker, bringer of life, counselor to others. The seed you planted will bring forth a yellow bubble, the rarest kind. It’ll rise until it reaches the Source, thus turning it yellow for that day. When it radiates yellow light, all life crystals in the world will begin to fill from within. For that day, no creature will need to hunt or forage, and they can rest without having to fight for survival.”

  Le∙ma shivered in the cold night, their source of comfort lost in the depths.

  “Is it bottomless?” she asked. Le∙ma imagined the crystal exiting their physical world, and in doing so, releasing a yellow bubble from the world without substance. Then it would begin its ascent toward the Source.

  Sa∙ma repeated the answer he’d been given long ago. For neither he nor any other living Polyan had any direct knowledge of what lay in the Rift. A few had fallen in, but none had ever returned. “It doesn’t have a bottom for us, the living. But when a Polyan dies, her structure journeys below to dwell with all those who have left us. This place, which we call ‘Qubessence,’ has an endless supply of violet energy. The lands are violet, the mountains are violet, even the sky looks violet. Everyone dwells in peace, never needing to find food for survival. There, everyone spends their time doing what they enjoy: playing, talking… and making statues.” He smiled at her.

  “It sounds amazing. Why would I not just jump in the Rift and go there now?”

  “Because, to go there, you must be pure. This is your final story and it’ll answer your question. It’s about how the Rift came to be, and why you wouldn’t want to jump into it.”

  Le∙ma sat back down next to the empty circle. “I'm ready.”

  Sa∙ma paced around her, wanting to illustrate his story with motion. “Remember the Troaten we saw from the top of the mountain?”

  “Yes.”

  “It plays a key role in this story. It’s the story of how the Rift was made, and the Source for that matter.”

  “But nobody knows how the Rift was made, right?”

  “Lumen Seekers do. It's the one story that’s passed down only to us, never told to the others. There is no need for them to burden themselves with this knowledge. It’s privileged to only us and our apprentices.”

  “I’m ready for the knowledge,” she implored.

  “A long while ago, just after the world was formed, the creatures did not yet know their bounds. At that time, the world was still a whole sphere; there was no Rift. If you could make it around the mountains and over the rivers, you could walk completely around the world and come back to the same spot from the opposite direction. The Rift changed all that.

  “One day there was born a Troaten, larger than the rest. This Troaten needed more food to survive. It depleted its sources, growing quite large in the process. It had become large enough to push itself over the mountains with its gigantic tentacles. So it flopped into the next valley and consumed everything there, growing even larger. It was never satisfied, and in its greed, drained every creature in the entire world. Nothing could escape its reaching grasp.

  “By now it had grown so large that its tentacles could reach across the whole world. It could push in all directions and suspend its center in the open middle, where the Source is now. Because it was so large, it was insatiable for more energy. Since no more creatures were alive, it did what no Troaten has done before or since; it began digging for buried crystals. It dug its tentacles into the ground and found the buried life crystals that feed the plants. It dug deeper and deeper, flailing more and more in a giant circle. It literally carved the chasm in the ground that we know today as the Rift.

  “But still it grew. It dug deeper and deeper, growing and growing, stretching farther and farther. And then, it reached the Qubessence with its tentacles.” Sa∙ma tried his best to recall the story exactly as Go∙ma had told him, but he embellished it slightly to connect it to the world without substance. “When the tentacles crossed the boundary into that world, the entry of physical matter caused a massive shockwave of energy. This flowed into the body of the Troaten. In a bright flash, its tentacles were shattered to dust, and the energy ignited its body radiant white. With its tentacles gone and its body in the exact center of the world, instead of falling, it just hung there.”

  Le∙ma interrupted, “So it became the Source?”

  “Indeed. The Source is what remains of that giant Troaten. Thanks to it and its greed, we now have something to give us guidance, and to illuminate our world. It’s also said, and this part is common knowledge, that the gods now dwell inside the Source, because it gives them a view of all the lands.”

  “Why is the Rift story kept a secret?”

  “Because some might be tempted to leap into the Rift, knowing the Qubessence lies beyond. But, as we learned with the Troaten, the Qubessence doesn’t want your body, only your structure. The resulting death is agonizing, and it’s suspected that the gods won't welcome you as readily.”

  “Has anyone ever jumped in?”

  “Some have, I’m afraid, and I can only
imagine the horrible death they received.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Now you have much to think about, so get some rest. Tomorrow we make the trip back, and you'll face the last trial of your journey.”

  Chapter 9 - First Day

  “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.” - Seneca

  Min arrived at 10 a.m. as instructed and entered the door to the makeshift lobby. Max was sitting at the reception desk playing on his phone. Apparently, he didn’t want to risk being late on her first day.

  “Good morning!” she said.

  “Welcome aboard the Spheria Project. You ready to begin?”

  “Sure am. Where should I put my things?”

  Max got up and stepped aside. “This is your desk,” he said, motioning to the vacated seat.

  Min looked at the reception desk. It did look comfortable and fancy with all the glass and contoured wood. But she was hoping for something more challenging than answering the phone and greeting people.

  “I’m going to be a receptionist?”

  “Um, no… I mean yes… uh… kind of...”

  “Huh?”

  “We get like one visitor a month. And we don’t have that much space. So you'll be working at this desk, and if someone happens to come in, just say hello and offer to get him or her some coffee. That’s all. I promise you we have cool projects for you to work on. But we need someone here, and all the other staff are, let’s just say, socially awkward, being scientists and all.”

  “Got it, not a problem. I can deal with that.”

  She placed her bag on the desk and sat down. The chair was comfortable. Three big computer screens also, awesome.

  Max grabbed one of the lobby chairs and pulled it up next to her. “Let me show you how to log in and get to the data files. We have a team meeting at eleven so you'll have a chance to meet everyone.”