STARWEB 1-5

by M. Modak

  That was when he and Joshua began exchanging all they knew. It wasn’t the first time he had seen him. Both John and Joshua had appeared in his dreams over the past two weeks. Only now, he knew everything about the two men, their lives, their marriages to Rana and Elizabeth, the new job, Michael, Anna, the dance and Kayla. His link to Joshua never fully stopped. A part of him had journeyed with Joshua through the multi-universe. Together they had connected with all the different versions of themselves. Then Joshua had returned to John’s world to stop Aughra. That was when the connection had faded. For him most of what Joshua had done and seen was just a blur of images and faces, but he knew Joshua had exchanged life experiences with all of them.

  It was astonishing to think of. After the link severed with Joshua, his head had started hurting badly.

  There were many times during Joshua’s journey, when he wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing. There was just too much he was experiencing, and it was all happening so quickly. Trillions of lifetime’s, from the most complicated forms to millennia spent as rocks, had passed in a blink. There was no way he could keep up with all Joshua was going through.

  What he had heard Lavar say about him scared him most. The name Sapen had sparked something dreadful in him but he couldn’t recall what it was.

  As much as he wished this were just a bad dream, he knew it wasn’t. It was all real. All the chemical elements that made up countless formulas came easily to mind. Every visible star seen in the heavens had a name and category he could recall. There was a complete design of Aughra in his head. He knew how to build a machine that could bend the forces that entangled all matter. And S-matter, the same stuff he was made of was the key to it all…

  The strangest part was the elf Lavar, and the Tree of Life. A great war was about to happen. That whole world had seemed magical though he knew it wasn’t. He wondered if magic really did exist. Maybe it wasn’t magic at all but something entirely different, perhaps there was a something not as abundant in this universe’s present stage of evolution that Lavar’s universe was busting at the seams with. He guessed it didn’t matter.

  Then again, there were those things, which had been inside him at the time he and Joshua were switching memories. Joshua had noticed them first and then as he saw through Joshua’s mind he knew it too.

  AI, Nano machines, millions of them, were living inside him. Every color he had ever seen or imagined exploded in his mind blinding him from seeing anything else for a while. Then Joshua had left and he felt abandoned to his madness. But there was still someone on his side.

  A beautiful presence came into him. A presence that could only be described as a “she,” was inside him. She was counter to everything he would later experience at Laytech. He could not see her as she engaged the AI machines that were tearing his brain apart. Then the other, dark one appeared and a battle over the control of the Nanos ensued. He didn’t resist her, his angel, and allowed her to fight this evil inside him.

  He had gone as limp as a penguin caught in the mouth of a sea lion. He only wondered what he would do if they let him go. These things were inside him. There was no place to run.

  He felt her, weaving in and out through his nervous system with a loving touch like a spider plucking the strings of her web. She was searching and destroying each Nano machine that crossed paths with her. With each of the tiny AIs destroyed, he could feel more sensations of joy flowing through him as her vibrations replaced the fear he experienced.

  Then she began to open his mind and do her own examination into the tiniest details of who he was and what he knew. The two forces were mostly interested in his new memories, but they had not fully developed yet.

  Her mental touch was in some ways more maddening than the fear he felt before. When she touched his mind, it felt like love had embraced his body for that moment. At times, he felt her asking questions in a strange voice that clicked and pulsed. Then she paused and wondered at a response he didn’t give. When it was over and the last of the AI machines were demolished, she disappeared from his mind. Then he rolled over and threw up black goo that had no smell. He hoped that goo was all the Nano machines in his body.

  When he had rolled back over, away from the vomit, and saw the forklift stuck in the wall at the end of the dark transport, he threw up again. His head dropped back down on the floor and he saw lights again. He turned away from the muck and wondered about all Joshua had shown him.

  The whole incident was too embarrassing. He decided to stay there, laying in a fetal position, for what seemed like hours and no one touched him.

  Sometime Later, after he had gotten up off the floor and sat down on the bench near the break room, the company nurse had checked him out. When she had finished a police officer stood over him with a report waiting for him to sign. It said that “The subject was operating RF583 Forklift normally when Heat Exhaustion over took Employee 284 Drake Thornton when he crashed the forklift. Louis, the shift supervisor, had observed him, ‘Glowing a soft white light just as the accident occurred.’ All the questions they had asked him were designed to see if he had been taking any drugs, he told them everything he could remember, and no, he wasn’t on drugs. But his boss was sure that he was, and was just about to fire him when the nurse came back with the test results. It read “Subject's injures occurred from heat exhaustion.” He was clean and he could go home now.

  In-between all this he had been catching glimpses of Joshua’s journey through the multi-universe. The part that stuck out most was when Lavar told Joshua that Drake’s heritage, his heritage, was the key to the mystery of what had happened to his world. And more trouble was coming!

  After the police officer had taken his full testimony, he just stared at him the same way Sam did this morning just after he woke up for the fourth time. Drake was sure the officer thought he’d found a way to fool the drug test. He had left the more interesting parts of what had happened to him out of the nurse’s report but he had told the police everything. The officer had wanted nothing to do with this case; he asked Drake to sign the report and happily wrote it off as an accident. After that, his boss offered an unconvincing apology and a few days off for rest. However, he was too upset and confused; he had quit right then, drove home, and got ready to go to work at Laytech.

  The Lane Alarm blared! The car’s emergency system blinked wildly as he yanked on the steering wheel putting the car back in his lane. He wasn’t too worried though, auto drive would have kicked in, at least it should kick in. On the other hand he had heard of some cars, cars with famous politicians in them, taking off lately on their own and killing their drivers. He let the thought go.

  But there was so much happening! The memory of that battle, over the control of his mind, at the Transport Company scared him. There were at least two different forces at work, fighting for control of the Nano machines inside his brain, and they were both feminine in nature. He had passed out at the loading dock though he was still conscience. He had blacked out four times at Laytech, and his protector didn’t come to rescue him from her those times. At least he could remember everything from the loading dock. He was sure he wasn’t having hallucinations or hearing voices, there was something real about it all.

  The nightmares he had seen at Laytech disturbed him the most. It felt like that original AI probing him again, searching his mind for information and then sending him images that he could not control.

  How did the Nanos get inside me!

  This, dark thing, he had encountered at Laytech, was trying to make him reveal something but he didn’t know what it wanted. It felt like it had taken something from his body, something vital. There were so many questions. Why is this emotionless, dark thing talking to me? Are there more of the tiny machines inside me? Were these memories from Joshua real?

  He had an idea. He said, “Computer, what’s the chemical formula for Sulfuric Acid.” Instantly auto drive kicked in and H2SO4 popped up on the windshield in front of him. He guessed he could have known th
at from some other source than his daydream.

  “What is S-matter?” He asked the networked computer.

  The computer brought up a list of nonsense unrelated to anything he remembered John using to build Aughra. Then he input the complete chemical formula, atomic number, atomic weight, and the absolute condensing temperature needed to put the S-matter in a semi-position of 0 energy and 1 energy within a quantum flux if he used photons.

  “No data found.”

  Then he tried the same condensing formula but with a quantum flux excited to a state of 1energy by vibration only. Again, the computer had nothing in its search engine about S-matter in any state or anything close to it on the periodic table. He reasoned that given the evidence at hand, S-matter should exist but perhaps only in the rarest undiscovered form.

  Then, slowly, the memory of Joshua looking into his body and discovering the seventh element inside him surfaced. S-matter had replaced most of the carbon in his body! His mind went wheeling at the thought of that. He remembered the amount of the molecule put in Aughra’s pods. John had only a small sample spilled on him. More than half of the carbon in his body was missing, replaced by this stuff. He had enough S-matter in him to run a thousand Aughra’s.

  There is something alien about me, he thought.

  After a few minutes had gone by, he noticed the sound of passing cars again and he went back to his original thoughts. He asked the computer for a long list of other chemical formulas cataloged in his mind, and then he moved on to star arrangements, esoteric math problems and electromagnetic field properties. He knew them all faster than the computer could update his query.

  Suspicion entered his mind as he considered the implications of all this instant knowledge, but he felt a little excited too. There were knew things he knew, real things that only someone with years of post-graduate college should understand. A deep breath filled his lungs as insights beyond his years packed in his awareness came to the surface. Suddenly, he found himself saying, “Oh,” and “Aaah… wow that’s the way that works,” every few seconds.

  This meant at least part of what he had been dreaming was true. Inside his mind, he held millions of memories from hundreds of lives. But most of the lives he remembered were fading even as he thought about them. Almost all of them had been lives lived in obscurity with little in the way of education or accomplishment. Some had lived lives of extreme intolerance, violence and killing, always for good reasons… at least in their minds. While others had served their fellow man and never harmed a fly.

  All the people Joshua had met were similar at their core but the way they thought about life, themselves and other people varied greatly- who they thought they were and what they wanted now was the greatest difference between them. They all had a unique way of thinking that, the more he thought about it, enhanced his overall view of life.

  The idea to leave Laytech came; at least that way Sam could find another partner as he tried to sort out all the things that had been happening to him. But he let it go. Then he wished he wouldn’t have quit the transport company last night. He was embarrassed knowing that his boss believed he was on some kind of hard drugs. On second thought, he wondered if S-matter, Nano machines and Aughra counted as hard drugs…

  Sam was different from anyone he knew. He felt a great level of responsibility towards him. And he knew that running from a problem only promises it will happen again. No, he would go to the doctor and see what they had to say, what they found. Maybe Sam was right and all he needed was a good meal and some sleep, but he doubted it.

  The sound of his corvette’s engine slowly drowned out all other thoughts leaving him with his feelings for her. It was the good female presence he had sensed in his mind and body, loving him, protecting him that intrigued him? Who is she, this angel of light? I never even saw her.

  Questions had come in a strange language. Her questions felt both loving and at the same time, she seemed to be demanding answers from him. Who was she talking to, and is there more to that AI than just Nano machines? What were they doing in my body?

  More than anything he wanted to answer her. If she just would have asked him in a language he could understand.

  Emotional and physical exhaustion overcame him as his car pulled into the driveway of his home. He looked down at his red stained hands with clots of dried blood, but he was too tired to do anything but take a shower. For a long drowsy moment he held his hands to his temples, his head was pounding. He needed to take a pill for this headache.

  The pain in his head, added to the smell of his dirty clothes gave him new motivation to get in the shower. Feeling weak from weeks of restless nights, he carefully stepped out of his car.

  Eating a home cooked meal hadn’t happened since he moved to Atlanta, and it would have to wait a little longer. The front door opened automatically when he approached and it whined as it shut behind him. The carpet was soft and inviting and he took off his shoes.

  “Damn, time to change those socks!” He said with a smirk.

  He pulled off his sweat soaked socks and threw them into the corner by the laundry room door. The guard shack was warm and humid. This, when mixed with a small space heater on the floor made his feet sweat so bad that when he walked they would squash and slip.

  The rest of his clothes were peeled off and thrown to the laundrybot before he stumbled into his bedroom. The doctor’s appointment scheduled for later that day passed through his mind. Then he fell into the bed. Instantly a black sleep took him into a dreamless slumber.

  Chapter 5 Betrayal

  Universe XJ824

  Michael sat in his high-backed chair, in his office, staring at the latest news. He had just turned off his phone’s flexscreen. His contacts in Florida were notified that he was coming and all the arrangements were made. He put the flexscreen down and said, “We need to get to the roof.”

  “After you,” Rana said.

  The four of them made their way back to the elevator and up to the top floor. From there, they took the service stairs to the roof where a helicopter was waiting. Michael opened the door and after everyone was in, he performed a visual inspection of the chopper’s exterior then went through the safety procedures and started the helicopter. He paused for a moment and reopened his flexscreen. Rana saw a picture of a small jet. Michael pressed a few buttons then rolled his flexscreen back up and they took off.

  They flew to a nearby air strip and landed next to a hangar. Michael bounded out the helicopter pausing to help Rana out but leaving John to get Kayla and catch up. The hanger lit up as they entered, revealing a small but sleek jet parked with engines running. Michael pulled out his flexscreen and pressed a button and the hanger doors opened as well as the doors to the jet. He ran around and kicked the chock away from the tires. John and Kayla came through the doors pausing for just a moment as they saw the jet. They followed as Michael and Rana hurried up the ramp and into the jet’s open doors. Michael took the Captain’s Chair and Rana sat on a small seat behind him.

  John came into the cock pit and said, “You can fly a jet too!?”

  Michael glanced his way, “I thought the skill might come in handy one day. My pilot is off tonight and besides I didn’t give a preflight. We need to just go and hope no one in the military decides to shoot us out of the sky.”

  “Shoot us out the sky!” Kayla said.

  “I doubt it will come to that, but I need to get us in the air then I will call in our flight plan as an emergency transport for medical reasons. I’ll have some serious questions to answer later but it will get us there safely. All my licenses are up to date and I have the emergency clearance from homeland security.”

  “How did you accomplish all that?” Rana asked.

  “I’m a certified first responder with a jet and a helicopter at my disposal. Under the circumstances I don’t believe I’m abusing the spirit of the code.”

  Rana said, “John, Kayla, please sit down; we need to go.”

  John sat down next to Michael,
and Kayla sat across from Rana then everyone strapped in. Michael ran through another set of safety checks then gave the all clear. He radioed the tower, they seemed surprised to hear from Michael but they approved his request for an emergency take off and soon they were cruising at 30,000 Feet.

  Michael called in his Emergence Flight Plan with his destination being the Florida Keys, “We have an hour before landing; I have some food in the freezer and drinks at the bar if you’re hungry or thirsty. There’s some beef jerky in the black bag I brought sitting on the chair in the back.”

  Rana ignored Michael, sat up straight and said to John, “Will I ever see my husband again?” No one moved. They were all exhausted. The rush of adrenaline had started to wear off and now everyone looked ready to melt into their seats. Rana’s question couldn’t have been more of a shock in the silence than if Michael would have said they were out of fuel.