“Your messages,” he said.
Mara looked down at the screen, filled with text. “You’re telling me all those spiders were delivering messages to me?” she asked.
Ping nodded. “You’ve been out of touch for a while. People were understandably concerned. I’m sure there will be more when we get home.”
“They use steam to carry the messages?”
He frowned, looked at her like she was delusional. “Of course. Digisteam is the medium that carries the information.”
“Digisteam. You’ve got to be kidding. Those puffs of smoke are carrying data?”
Now he looked worried. “It’s exactly the way you designed it to work. Look, we’re a short copter ride away from the manor. Once we get there, we can sort this out. Being in familiar surroundings will bring it all back to you, I’m sure.”
“Manor? What manor?” she asked.
“The Progenitor’s Manor,” he said.
CHAPTER 6
The copter felt more buoyant than Mara expected, more like a vessel floating on water than a helicopter held aloft by blowing a downward force of air. While Ping operated the levers on the sides of his chair, she stared at the propellers spinning several feet above their heads. While they spun fast enough to disappear, Mara could not hear any sound—not even the whup-whup-whup she had heard earlier—nor feel any wind. At the least she’d expected a strong downdraft. How did the thing fly without smashing them into the ground?
Ping navigated the gated sphere more than one hundred feet straight up and toggled the levers. They pitched forward and flew toward town.
“From what I can see of this machine, it shouldn’t be able to fly at all. Clearly not enough force is coming from those propellers to lift us. How does it work?” she asked.
Ping gave her a sidelong glance. “What happened to you after you crossed over? You are acting so strangely,” he said.
“I’m not exactly who you think I am,” she said. “And you’re not who I thought you were when I first saw you.”
“Perhaps I should have checked you for head injuries,” he said.
“That’s not necessary. I feel fine. Now, when you say I crossed over, what do you mean?”
“When you disappeared, I assumed that something happened to your body and that you regained consciousness for some reason. Did you wake up in the receptacle?”
“You are aware of the receptacles, that your biological bodies are being stored in stasis?”
He frowned at her and said, “Of course.”
They approached the edge of town, and Ping shifted the lever to his left, and they banked to the south. Mara eyed the rooftops below, most of which were made from wood shingles or tin. The compacted dirt roads were traveled by horse-drawn wagons with an occasional unharnessed horse and rider, and, as she had thought earlier, most of the buildings were wood-framed clapboard with a few brick facades thrown in here and there.
She glanced in the distance and saw the beached whale. “Is that a crashed blimp of some kind?” she asked, pointing to their left.
Ping glanced over and said, “That’s the dirigible that crashed yesterday after running into a chasm that opened. It smashed the front wall of the stables at the southeastern corner of the town square, but, luckily, no one was hurt.”
“Dirigible? You mean like an airship?”
Still looking at her like she was nuts, he said, “Yes, a dirigible is an airship. Fortunately it was one of the smaller ones.”
“It was in the air and crashed?”
“They rarely crash once they are on the ground.” His brows knitted into a worried expression. He extended his right foot and pressed a pedal on the floor. The vehicle accelerated enough to press Mara into her seatback.
“If you are rushing because you think I’m crazy, you can slow down,” she said. When he glanced at her doubtfully, she continued, “I’m not the Mara you know. I come from a different realm—a different Reality—than the one where your body is from. In my world, we live out our entire lives in our biological bodies. A virus never threatened our lives to the extent that we needed synthetic bodies or receptacles.”
His right foot reached for the pedal again, and Mara grabbed Ping’s knee to stop him from pressing it once more.
“I’m telling you the truth. The Ping I know would at least ask questions before dismissing what I’m saying.”
He relaxed his leg, and she let it go. “Very well. If you are not the Mara I know, where is she? My Mara, I mean.”
“She’s still in her receptacle, but it was disconnected from the signal network that allows all of you to communicate with each other and share this existence,” Mara said.
“That would explain why she disappeared—and why the chasms appeared,” he said. “But why would they disconnect her receptacle? That only happens after someone dies, and Mara has years to go before she attains her life expectancy.”
Mara looked up and pressed her lips together. “Sheesh. How do I explain this? Okay. The Mara with the synthetic body was attacked and seriously injured. So much so they needed to extract new engrams from her biological body in the receptacle. Are you following me?”
Ping nodded. “So far.”
“Some serious social unrest happened at the time, and they couldn’t get her synthetic body to the proper repository, where her biological body was located. So they stored it at a repository in Portland. In the meantime, I—in my own biological body—was seriously injured.” She looked at him to see if he understood. When he nodded, she continued. “So they took engrams from my biological body and put them into the synthetic body of your Mara. They then disconnected her receptacle from the signal network so I would not sync up with her receptacle. Follow?”
“That’s when she disappeared from this world,” Ping said. “She was cut off, disconnected from us.”
“I think so. The good news is that they are working on replacing her synthetic body, and she should be reconnected within two weeks,” Mara said.
“That’s quite a story. Very elaborate.”
“So you don’t believe me.”
“If you are from a different Reality other than the one in which I was born, how did you come to be here? How did you travel here?” he asked.
“I used a device called the Chronicle. It allows me to travel between realms.”
He looked surprised. “The Chronicle of Cosms?”
“Cosms? No, the Chronicle of Creation.” Her hand slipped to her jeans pocket, where she felt the copper medallion. It’s there, even though this realm is just a dream. She dismissed the thought. “What’s a cosm?”
“You used this device to travel from your realm to the one in which I was born. Did you use it to travel here?”
“No. I entered a receptacle to come here. This isn’t really a realm. Just some kind of dream you and your fellow receptacle occupants are sharing. Isn’t it?”
“Oh, it’s much more than a mass delusion. I think this realm is as real as the one you come from.”
“So you believe me?”
“Let me ruminate on it for a while,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means, I need time to think about it. I must admit that you are a little pushier than usual, if that accounts for anything.”
The spherical cage bobbed upward without warning, leaving Mara’s stomach feeling for a moment like it had dropped out of her. She gasped and grabbed the armrest of her seat.
“No need for concern. We always catch that thermal bump right before landing at the manor,” Ping said.
Mara craned her neck and inspected the framework around them. The vehicle had no walls or skin. The spherical latticework around them was comprised of thick vertical tubing bound by horizontal wires. In the base of the ball was a metal grate that acted as a platform for their seats. Ping’s seat had levers on each side and two pedals in front of it, which he manipulated without appearing to give it much thought. Her chair was clearly a passenger seat with no contr
ols. Above them spun the propellers that had no discernable function.
“If it’s not too pushy to ask, can you explain how this thing can fly? The propellers are not generating enough lift for flight,” she said.
“You are correct. The propellers provide steering, altitude control, speed and an envelope of protective air around the copter,” he said.
He made a face she couldn’t decipher.
“What?”
“It’s strange explaining this to you. After all, you invented this vehicle.”
“Right. I designed the spiders—excuse me, miders—and that pad that sucks in their steam. And I invented this gerbil ball that flies with no visible means of lift. Do tell, how did I accomplish that?”
“If the copter doesn’t use propulsion or lift to fly, what do you imagine would be the alternative?” Ping asked.
She looked irritated. “My Ping has a tendency to answer a question with a question. Let me see. If it’s not being pushed or pulled, it must defy gravity somehow.” She twisted around in her seat and saw no evidence of an engine or other machinery. Settling back, she said, “There’s something inside those tubes in the frame of this thing, something like helium.”
“Close. Helium wouldn’t do it though.”
“Then what is it?”
“Steam. Gravisteam.”
“Gravity-defying steam is inside the frame of this big ball?”
“Exactly.”
“And from where does this marvel of water-vapor innovation come?”
“From you of course.” Ping smiled.
“Of course.” Mara rolled her eyes and asked, not expecting an answer, “Is there anything around here that the other me didn’t invent?”
Ping chuckled and said, “Actually there isn’t. Now tell me about this other Ping that you mentioned. What is he like?”
“You can decide for yourself when you meet him,” Mara said.
“He’s here?”
“Around here somewhere.”
“You might have mentioned that earlier when convincing me that you came from a different realm.”
“I suppose meeting him would help me make my case. Wouldn’t it?”
“Hang on. We’re ready to descend to the manor.”
The ball spiraled downward in a corkscrew maneuver that made Mara dizzy. She tried to focus on something on the ground, but everything whipped by too quickly. It was a good thing she hadn’t eaten in a while.
CHAPTER 7
Ping and Mara plunged from the sky toward an ornate Queen Anne mansion with gables going in every direction and a large turret on the southeast corner. As the gated ball carried them past the turret, they flew around a corner and dipped almost to ground level, where Mara noted the finely carved balusters beneath the porch railings that flanked the grand house. Large windows, some arched, others rectangular, some filled with stain glass, whipped by as the ball gained altitude once again. Mara’s chin pressed against her chest until they leveled off.
And everything went dark.
A loud rumbling filled the air, and Mara jerked and bounced in her seat, like a roller coaster ride, as the vehicle swung to and fro, up and down.
“Ping! What is hap—”
They popped back into the afternoon daylight and fell straight down. Mara grabbed her seat arms and prepared for a crash when they came to a stop, and it seemed the world bounced. Wide-eyed, she caught her breath and turned to Ping, who made no move to leave his seat, though they were no longer in flight.
He smiled at her and then realized she was disturbed. “Nothing to be concerned about. We used the deceleration tube to land more quickly.” He pointed up and behind them to an aluminum candy-cane-shaped tube that looked like a large sewer pipe mounted on twenty-foot-high pylons. “That way we didn’t have to slow down to land.”
Mara looked past the edge of the ball to see they were suspended in a net stretched out ten feet above the lawn behind the Queen Anne mansion. She glared at Ping and said, “That seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to save a minute or two of landing.”
The net stopped bouncing and lowered the flying ball to the ground. Once the copter no longer moved, Ping unlocked his seat belt and stood. “Actually it doesn’t save any time at all, but I use it for old time’s sake, I suppose.”
“Old time’s sake?” Mara followed suit and stood up.
“After inventing the copter, you thought coming in for a landing was a little dull, so you came up with this,” he said. He lifted the side door latch of the caged ball and waited for Mara to exit the craft.
She stepped onto the lawn and walked past the edge of the net, lying on the ground under the ball. “Sounds like something I would have thought up when I was quite a bit younger.”
Ping closed the door with its chain-link clatter and joined her. “Yes. During the first year after the inception,” he said. He pointed toward the back of the large house. As he turned to walk toward it, Mara touched his arm, and he paused.
“Inception?” she asked.
“The inception of this place—this realm, as you call it—where we live,” he said.
“Mara was here during the first year this realm existed? How is that possible?”
“I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“I’m assuming Mara is the same age as I am, so that makes her almost eighteen. If she was here during the first year after this inception of yours, it had to have happened after she was ten, when she transitioned and entered the receptacle.”
“That’s correct.”
“You’re saying this realm is less than eight years old?”
“That too is correct.”
“But you are over forty years old. Where were you before the inception eight years ago?”
“In my receptacle, in stasis, like everyone else.”
“What changed to cause this realm to come into being?” Mara asked.
“The progenitor was connected to the receptacle network, and she brought it into being.” He headed for the house.
As Mara turned to follow him, she noticed the large tent on the far side of the lawn, some fifty yards away. Pointing to it, she called after him, “What’s with the tent?”
He paused again and stared at her. “At this rate, it will take us all afternoon just to walk from the landing net to the back door.” He glanced over at the tent and said, “You don’t know, do you?”
“No, Ping. I don’t. I really am a different Mara than the one you know. Metaphysically I’m the same, but I’m a different version of the person you know.”
Ping snorted derisively. “Metaphysics.” Shaking his head, he added, “Utter nonsense.”
“How else would you explain that I’m here and your Mara is standing in a tube somewhere else in stasis?”
He raised a finger. “Ah, but we have not established that, in fact, you are someone other than the Mara I know. You might have bumped your head and become disoriented.” His gaze scanned her hairline.
Mara smiled at him. “I will not spend any more energy convincing you. You’ll see. When the time is right, you’ll see.”
“When I meet myself.”
“Exactly.”
When they stepped onto the large back porch, they were met by a mider, squatting at the top of the stairs. Mara didn’t see it until she almost stepped on it. Startled, she stumbled, but Ping caught her arm.
“Sheesh, those things give me the creeps. Isn’t there some way to put them on hold? I’m not in the mood to check messages at the moment. Besides, I’m not sure I would know who they’re from or how to answer them,” she said.
Ping pulled out his receiver, the brass pad he’d demonstrated earlier. “Fortunately I believe this is a message for me. I’ve got a friend tracking the chasms, and I am expecting a report from him.” The mider’s shell opened, and its tiny smokestack released its puff of digisteam. Ping’s pad inhaled the tiny cloud, and he stared down its screen.
Mara eyed the spider gizmo as it skittered
away. There must be thousands of those things crawling around. A shiver ran up her spine.
“Just as I expected,” Ping said.
“What?” Mara asked.
He lowered the pad. “As soon as you returned, the chasms dissipated. There have been no reports for over two hours.”
“You mentioned the chasms before. You said the dirigible ran into one. What are they?” Mara asked.
“They look like big black holes in Reality. That’s the only way I can describe them,” Ping said. “Whatever comes in contact with them dissolves. Thus, the dirigible became damaged and crashed after it encountered one.”
“Black holes. Ping—my Ping—said he thought this Reality was collapsing or something like that. What do you think caused them?”
“I think your absence caused them,” Ping said.
“How so?”
“When you were connected to the receptacle network, this Reality came into being. It’s only logical to think that you being disconnected from it could have the opposite effect.”
“You’re saying this realm exists only as long as …”
“Only as long as the progenitor is connected to it. That appears to be the case.”
“Well, that sucks,” Mara said. “I was looking forward to leaving here as soon as possible.”
CHAPTER 8
Considering the size of the mansion, the small kitchen surprised Mara. It looked to be about the same dimensions as the one in her mother’s house—before the dragon burned it down. Given that the Progenitor’s Manor, as Ping referred to it, was five or six times the size of her house from childhood and beyond, the room struck her as disproportionate.
Ping had just placed a plate of sandwiches and a bowl of salad on the table when chimes rang out from somewhere else in the house. He jogged to the counter, grabbed a towel and wiped off his hands.
“Is that a doorbell?” Mara asked.
Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) Page 4