by P. S. Power
His world was far away. That was why the man had to focus, activating the device that existed inside of himself, as he moved, nearly flowing, across the room. The point of exit was selected by the fellow, using a thought and a little focus, the machine inside of him, a thousand times more complicated than any computer or AI that Ben had ever heard of, did the rest of the work. Arranging the world carefully, so that a stream of pure space was formed, in such a pattern that it mimicked the background of the world that Winston needed to be in.
His own, since that was the fastest way of getting things done.
Every being was most attuned to being where they were supposed to, of course. It was an intense enough feeling, mainly coming from the tiny device inside of the man. The body of the thing reminded him of a grain of rice if bigger, but it was, in its own way, more intelligent than either of the human beings there. Ben or Winston. Possibly greater than both were, at the same time. Despite its limited size. A quantum computer, probably.
Not that he knew about things like that. The sense of what was happening, the silver light being formed around Winston growing as he got closer to the exit of the building, and the different feeling space within an area of chaos, was powerful this time. Ben didn’t ride inside the man’s head for it, just walking behind him. Trying to make himself reflect the pattern of that other place. It felt odd to him. As if the world didn’t want him to even try it.
Like the universe was screaming for him to leave it alone and not to play with things like that. The trick there was that Ben didn’t have a choice in the matter. He either had to get better information, so that he could shove a bomb back through the hole, or close the thing himself first, or many, many people, were going to die.
He bounced back the first time he tried to go through with the other man. Too much of his natural pattern, his body and mind, resisted the move. Not as powerfully as the last time that he’d done something that foolish, getting a lot closer this time, but it knocked him over physically, and brought him back to the all-black room.
“Well, that isn’t how it’s done.”
Before he could do it again, a voice came at him. It was his own, only older. Slightly stern sounding this time.
David. His ghost, or a version of him from either another world or the land of true internalized crazy.
“No. That is right. You just need to get better at it. You were getting your thoughts into the right frame, but you need to make it happen for your entire body. If too much of you resists, then you won’t be able to see into the other realms. It doesn’t take power however, just knowing what it’s supposed to feel like. Anyone could learn to do it, if they tried hard enough. Try it again.”
He did, and swore that his back impacted on the wall behind him, which was, thankfully, well padded. Ben realized that his entire body had been pushed backwards, several feet. Nearly three, in order for him to smack into the wall. The room he was in looked like a regular room again, save for the floating facts and figures that were coming at him.
Then the disembodied voice again.
“Close! So close. Again. This is taking longer than you might imagine. It seems like an hour for you, but you’ve been here for nearly three days. So, hurry? You have to be able to do this. The only way for the whole thing to work is if everyone comes together, and the other… The being you can’t read, who is working with the computer there? He can do it. If you want to stop him, the real power behind all of this, then you need to be ready. So… Do it. Don’t give up.”
That took several more tries, and though they were gentler, more trips into the wall behind him, which by this point were going to leave a bruise, if they were actually happening. Ben had no assurance of that, and kind of hoped that it wasn’t. After all, if his delusions and visions were going to get that realistic, Ben was in trouble.
Finally, on what was probably the fifteenth real try, which Ben saw as an orange and red number in the upper right of his field of vision, helpfully enough, he followed along.
As Winston stepped from a building in Boston, into a different world that looked entirely different, being a city out of some kind of science fiction dream, Ben pushed in behind him. Physically. Enough that the man stumbled forward, nearly falling.
There were other people on the street, but as far as he could tell no one looked all that bothered by him being there. Even if he was dressed a bit funny. The rest of them were all in nice dresses, and suits. Really, they looked like they belonged in a time that was at least fifty years before his own, if not a lot more than that.
“Interesting. So the progression of time isn’t always fluid, from world to world? I’d been thinking of it as being very even. You know, if it’s March tenth where you start, then it would be the same in the world you stepped into? That isn’t the case really, is it?” The words were spoken out loud, which got the thirty odd year old looking man to turn and smile.
His eyes were a bit too dark, and his hair was a regular brown, and too long for the world they were in by what seemed like several inches.
“Ben? What are you doing here? Did they get too close to finding you? I rather had to run at the end there. I doubt I’ll be allowed to go back unnoticed either. Those people have excellent security.” It was still hard to read the other man’s mind, but there was no instant move to fight, and more telling no orange sphere floating off to the left.
Ben shrugged, and tried to smile, fearing that, in some manner, he’d just actually walked across worlds. By mistake. Though, it was kind of clear that was what the ghost voice was trying to get him to do now. He nodded, and then let that change. Into a soft head shake.
“Not exactly.” It was going to be easier to tell the truth, as long as it didn’t start a massive fight with the man. One that Ben knew he wasn’t going to be able to win. If the timing was consistent, Winston was just off of killing several people in mech armor, and even more that had just had guns, or been unarmed. Ben wasn’t ready to do any better than they had, so there was a need to be clever, instead of strong.
“I don’t actually know, to be honest. I was looking at where you went, to check up on you, and ended up following you through. You know how hard it is to read your mind. I mentioned that before?”
It didn’t seem likely, since they weren’t close friends, but the answer was telling.
“You did. My use of ancient languages makes it difficult for you to grab it all. I thought you said that going for the base idea was enough, most of the time?” He looked around the street, saw a woman in a pale lavender dress, and nodded to her. “Ma’am.”
Ben did the same, trying to use politeness to get around the fact that he looked funny. Disreputable, like the man he was with. Like they might be sea farers, or possibly homosexuals. Deviants. The kind of men that should be made illegal.
Going out in public in pajamas like Ben so clearly was.
Winston nodded at him then.
“What you just said is correct. Time doesn’t always flow evenly between worlds. That caught me by surprise as well. It isn’t just about how technology progresses either. That had been my first thought, personally. We’re far ahead of your world here, as far as that goes, but it’s only nineteen-fifty-two. The world that we were just in is ahead of yours by twenty years, time wise, and mine by over a hundred. Yet they are less technologically advanced by far, as you can see.” He gestured around, as if the people that walked out of thin air, and buildings that seemed to float in the sky above were all that special. The architecture looked old, but the special effects were kind of neat.
The thing was, even though the cars in the road made no noise, and floated, Ben would have really figured that it was when Winston had told him. The fifties. So he nodded and then smiled about the whole thing, as if it were funny.
“Well, if you’re all right and don’t have anything for me? I should probably work out how to get back.” For a moment Ben felt odd about that, and there was a flash of annoyance from the man.
“Yo
u still haven’t gotten that part have you? I’ll open a portal for you, this once, but the other side has people that can do it on their own. Figure that out, or they might just win. We’ve had no luck in bringing one of their travelers over to our side, so we’re counting on you, Ben.”
The device inside the man started working, which smoothed space over again. The entire thing chaotic around it, making the rough shape of a door. One that couldn’t be seen. The trick there was that Ben himself was going to need to pick what his body and mind felt like, in order to get back home. Which, thankfully, was remarkably easy.
As he stepped into the field, moving back into the building that it had to have looked like he’d walked out of, he vanished, ending in a totally dark room again. One that was nearly so. The door was opened, and a voice called out. Glenda.
“Ben? The bio signs are back, like you said Mags. Ben?”
“I’m here! I’m back. I… Actually I think I traveled to another world, if that wasn’t a delusion. There’s data, which is good. I didn’t stop the AI. I did find out who’s behind the attacks however, other than the machine. I think.”
He walked out, into a room that was way too bright. Shielding his eyes in pain, he smiled, and shook his head a bit, not asking for them to be turned off or down. He didn’t have time to adjust slowly.
Mags moved in and hugged him, making the world around him go silent, a sense of pressure that Ben hadn’t known was there lifting.
“Who? Do you have a name? The person behind all of this?”
“Oh. Yeah. Ben. Epson. I think that the person that set this all up is me, guys. From a different world, but… Yeah.”
Glenda nodded, and then sighed.
“Fuck.”
Mags held him tighter.
“Well, that isn’t good. Or is it?”
Ben smiled then, and nodded, with his eyes mainly closed.
“I know. All we have to do now is find me, and we can stop him. Easy as cake.”
Glenda looked at him funny then.
“Pie.” She seemed suspicious, as if his using the wrong word was a sign that he was either gone in the head, or not really him.
“Whichever, I’m starving. Can we go get something to eat?”
Then, carefully, he laughed and headed toward the exit.
Chapter thirteen
The information was confusing, and Ben wasn’t totally certain that he’d done anything at all. That was, in the end, the problem with life-like memories and delusions springing up all the time. If he imagined a thing was happening, then there might well be no way for him to tell that it wasn’t at the moment. The first thing that he’d noticed like that had been a floating ball, that had numbers on it, hanging in front of him. The sphere was a projection, but the numbers on it, and the color, had come from inside of his own head.
Just to be annoying, the same thing popped up in front of him now, as if his subconscious mind was showing off for him. The only saving grace there was that another sphere, this one larger and a slightly glowing orange, hung off to the left. Letting him know that what he was seeing, as he sat in the dining hall wasn’t real. At least in part, as he looked down at his tray, filled with hard shelled tacos, Ben shook his head.
“What’s with all the tacos here? I mean, the kitchen can make other things. I’ve seen them do it. If it’s just about things that people can assemble on their own, then, I don’t know, burritos? This is getting ridiculous.”
Glenda looked at him funny, then scowled a bit. Mags was right next to him, and Lissa had come, sitting across the way, but Lenore was gone. As in having actually headed to a secret underground military facility that no one knew about. One that the President had made sure wasn’t logged into a computer anywhere, as far as his daughter being there.
Clark was off, actually working on a totally different project for the government. Ben didn’t love to hear that, but their current real world enemy wasn’t the entire terrorist thing. Just one AI. As well as that AIs little buddy, Ben, from a different world.
The one who had helped set everything up, as far as getting the Swarm there. The bugs traveled on their own, however, so it wasn’t a thing that no one else knew of, in all of the infinite worlds around them. The idea was mind boggling, and even knowing the words, Ben figured he was really just putting in the idea of a lot, in place of the vast scope that truly existed. Worlds and universes without end.
What he didn’t get is how he, even from a different version of things, could have become a terrorist. Picking on people that he had no reason even meeting, for some reason that made no sense in the slightest to Ben. The attacks hadn’t even been that successful, over all. They hadn’t stopped all of them yet, but most had been greatly diminished in impact, which was impressive, but couldn’t be what the other version of him wanted.
Unless it was, and the reality of the situation was simply that there was something so alien and unworldly about the other version of him that even Ben couldn’t understand his warped thinking. It was possible that he was insane. Well, that both of them were, if similar things had been done to them.
The time difference seemed off however. Ben was, from what had been said, a world that was twenty years older than the other version of himself. Who’d come from a world that was much like the one he was in, at a guess, but earlier in the stream of time.
Only, Ben had been a child then.
That had to be down to the whole infinite possibilities thing, he guessed, and stopped thinking about it, since Glenda was glaring at him still, her blue eyes locked on his gem like green.
“You’re refusing to worship at the altar of the all mighty taco? Blasphemy!” She couldn’t hold her serious expression then and smiled. “I don’t know the real reason. I think it started as a joke, about two years ago, and since then, everyone just kind of got used to it. They’re good enough, and filling.”
Ben nearly complained that they also cut up your mouth, but that wasn’t really true. He ate one of the ten or so on his plate, and nodded then. They were good enough, he supposed.
“It just seems strange, that’s all. Anyway.” Ben ate for a bit, as Mags looked away, her face passive, but a little upset around the edges.
“Um… Are you still mad at me? I was ready for a big fight the other day, over the video? I really didn’t do that much.” It was enough that it worried her however.
Ben made a face, twisting his lips to the side.
“Eh. Well, I can let it pass this time. You and Lissa are both sleeping with me for the next month though. Unless… Did you finally get with Clark?” He looked across the table at Lis, who shook her head, looking subdued on the topic.
“No. Clark has been really busy. No one will say why. I guess we can do that, if it will make you feel better? I don’t want to get between anyone and their happiness.”
Ben could see that. A lot of her life had been less than pleasant really, for her.
“Oh, speaking of happy times, how’s the work going? On the autobiography?” For a moment he feared that it hadn’t happened at all, but it had been a real premonition, that it would work. If they could get it out at the right time.
Lissa tilted her head back and forth and actually took a bite of soft shelled taco, which wasn’t how she normally bought time to think, even if it clearly was this time. When no one spoke, and she’d swallowed carefully, the woman nodded at him.
“Not bad. My father is coming. Here. To do an interview about things? I don’t have to be there for it. It isn’t really something that I want to focus on, but I guess it’s helping a bit, going over it all. We got Benny to do the voice work for it. He has that great accent. British. Bethany thinks that we should have it done in about a week, which is fast work. What we do with it after that, I don’t know. Toss it up on the web?” She was honestly asking him, and nervously took another bite of food.
“I… Need to check on that? I don’t think so. It needs to go up on a large network, to get the views it deserves. Let me see if I
can figure that one out?”
There was a subdued nod, and Mags leaned into him, as if to assure herself that her sex antics hadn’t really driven him away yet. It was annoying, but honestly, they hadn’t really been dating officially, and even Ben could see that part of things. It was a bit of a shame that he hadn’t gotten to do anything with Lenore, but that was just how it had all played out.
“After dinner however. I have things to get to… But kind of need to sleep. I don’t think I really did, in there. Not this time. I was trying to walk into different worlds… Or to be honest, just trying to look. That’s going to make it all more dangerous when I try for the sight of the bombing to come. We’re running out of time.” Ben, thinking about it all, yawned, not meaning to. That got Mags to go as well, since it was a bit late, being nearly seven in the evening.
Focusing, he worked on the food, as Glenda, rather helpfully, changed the subject.
“I have some new weapons that I need you to look at. Energy based. I… Actually managed to get them, from another world.” She went still, as if she expected Ben not to believe her.
Having recently been in a far off place himself, he could kind of see it however.
“Yeah? How did that work?”
“Ah…” She looked around, and then sighed. “All right. So a few weeks back, at the last of the Swarm attacks I was at? This man appeared, out of nothing. At first I figured he was just a civilian, so I told him to fucking run, but then he started to fight, and ran a lot faster than most can. It was highly unusual, as you might guess. There was a letter, written on paper like we used to do it, that I can’t go into at the moment, but basically the man, Zack, is a different version of me.”