by JM Guillen
I bet. Come on back, I think we can account for that.
By the time I returned to them, Wyatt was about twenty feet from Anya, calibrating a spike. She kneeled, picking at thin air and peering intently at the nothingness in front of her as she did.
It’s a very small axiomatic change, Michael. Someone attempted to hide it from us, but they ended up hiding everything locally. That’s why my readings were showing nothing at all.
What is it? I knelt next to her, even though I couldn’t see what she saw.
Things are knotted right at this spot. I’ll send you the same patch I sent Wyatt.
I winced as it hit me. It was a large one, entirely visual data. I opened the packet, and it immediately laid the semi-transparent data across my vision, creating a world of corded filaments. Hundreds. Thousands. Everything was tied together, wound about with threads of different colors and sizes. They stretched into infinity, going through the ground, through us, and into the sky.
This is a close approximation as to what my visual interface looks like when I am taking readings. Each thread is representative of a local axiom. It’s not factual in any way, simply the interface that the system uses.
I nodded, thinking of the way her fingers normally twitched like she was playing an invisible harp.
Then, I saw three of the threads intersected where she crouched. They looked as if they had been cut, and an entirely different thread had been tied on to hold them together. That thread pulsed a lurid, violent red.
I didn’t read it, not at first. Wyatt was using the tangler to set up a safe zone, and I noticed that when he altered Rationality, I could get readings again.
I smiled. Seeing these threads, I understood why Wyatt’s gear was nicknamed the tangler.
The moment I could get readings, I saw this. It’s more than just altering axioms. This is representative of a small piece of Rationality being cut away and replaced with something else. The fact that it occurs right at the door of Locale One seems indicative.
I stood, stretching my legs. There’s nothing inside. It’s exactly as abandoned and derelict as we might have expected.
Wyatt walked over to where we stood. Let me know when and where you want the last spike.
Anya was plucking at the threads in front of her, looking for all the world as if she were cracking a safe or picking a lock. Fifteen-point-five meters to Bishop’s right. Set a spike with the parameters I am patching to your Crown.
Wyatt’s head twitched as he received the packet. Copy.
I watched Anya work, fascinated now that I could see what she was doing. Each axiomatic strand tied to the others in thousands of ways, and the slightest alterations to one would pull and twist those around it. Of course, I wasn’t looking at a live feed from her Crown or anything, this was only an overlay. Still, as her fingers worked at the unnatural knotted spot in the weave, I could see that she was trying to unknot it, trying to get a good read on that pulsing red strand.
WHUF.
The moment Wyatt placed the spike, Anya’s fingers began to move faster. Her eyes narrowed as she worked at the snarl.
Then the world melted.
I switched off Anya’s visual to learn what own eyes could tell me. For a moment, everything around us ran like melting wax but then hardened into its original shape. In front of us, where the door to the silo stood, was a curtain where the world never stopped melting. We couldn’t see through it, as it covered a door.
Anya stood, her fingers twirling and twitching madly. Her eyes went wide.
The knot was another trigger, a far more complex one than the snares. It could only be activated on purpose. She looked to Wyatt and then me. It’s another topia, one not meant to be found.
Wyatt stepped closer, peering at the veil. Maybe that’s where that little shit Firenzei kept stepping off to. He glanced at her. You wouldn’t be able to read him if he stepped into another topia.
It was true. Much of our Facility gear relied on the Lattice, which simply didn’t reach into other topias. Much of our communications and gear went down inside them, as mine had in the airport men’s room. This also meant that whoever went inside would be out of touch with the others and the Designate.
I stepped forward. I’ll re-engage the Wraith and reconnoiter. Most installed packets and viral mecha did not require the Lattice. I’m the only one that makes sense. You are both needed to operate the door. I grinned at them, faking a cheer I did not feel. Make certain the Designate knows where I am, and I will time-stamp my Crown when I enter. We can offload the phaneric data later, even though I won’t be in touch in real time.
Anya looked uncomfortable. The entire point of the dossier was for me to take readings, Michael.
It will all be protocol. I gave her a grin. I’ll step inside and scout. I’ll be back within fifteen minutes. We can check in with the Designate, and I’ll offload a patch to you both on the layout. Then, we go in together.
It really is the best plan. Wyatt let his gear power down. In order to open that thing, we need you to figure out what we are doing, and me to make the proper alterations. We need to stay on the same side of that door.
Now Anya seemed more certain. You must follow those parameters, Michael. Don’t stay in longer than fifteen minutes. Don’t engage unless you must. Scout and record layout data for all of us. She looked at Wyatt. I will check in with the Designate now.
He tipped an imaginary hat at me, and I nodded, engaging the Wraith. The veil felt like burning silk as I stepped through it.
For a brief moment, everything was crystalline fire. I gasped at the sensation, and I feared it was burning away my memory, a strange thought.
There was nothing on the other side.
I fell.
16
The ground was soft and oddly spongy where I landed, covered in an odd mossy substance. I landed hard, knocking all the breath out of me when I hit.
Fuck. It was habit to link, but there was no one there. I knew it the moment I sent the link. It was like calling into a large, empty room, and only hearing your own voice echo back.
The loneliness was instant; the tickling prickles of utter solitude felt like a column of needle-footed ants climbing my spine. One of the upsides to being an Asset was always being connected to your cadre or at least to a Designate on solo missions. Being adrift from the Lattice was a terrifying, claustrophobic feeling. I slowed my breathing and forcibly relaxed.
Then, I pushed myself up and looked around.
It was misty, and the air seemed heavy and hard to breathe. Everything was dark, except for the haunted mist, which hung thick in the air. It glowed softly with an odd, yellow cast. For a moment, I worried over my deep breaths. What if this wasn’t oxygen? Breathing in the glowing mist didn’t seem wise, yet I had no way of knowing what it was. Without Anya, I couldn’t know the effects, couldn’t even get a reading on the ambient Rationality. After a moment of paralysis, I realized it didn’t matter.
I had fallen here. The door that Anya had opened specifically let out somewhere about ten meters above this spot, a simple, but elegant trap. I had no means of getting up to the door even if it were still open.
And I doubted it was still open, at least from my side.
I was trapped.
I had no way to know the nature of the mist, and no way to calibrate my viral mecha against it. It simply wasn’t a problem I could do anything about. The air seemed somewhat breathable, however.
I pulled one of the katana with my right hand and held a disruptor in my left. I wasn’t the best southpaw shot, but I had no idea what local axioms might do to my kinetic weapon. I didn’t intend to discover that my disruptor was useless as some abomination bore down on me.
Timestamp: Bishop Alpha. Even without the Lattice, my Crown was an amazing tool. It simply lacked its connection to the system. Using a timestamp would allow me to patch all reconnaissance data, if I touched the Lattice again.
When. When I touched the Lattice again.
&nbs
p; Carefully, I crept forward.
The spongy ground quickly gave way to a metallic floor. The entire tunnel was an otherworldly, dark metal, the likes of which I had never seen. It felt similar to cast iron but had no spots of rust or pits on its surface. It seemed octagonal, but when I tried to count the sides to confirm this, I had a difficult time. I could still count to eight, but the hallway seemed to tilt strangely, as if the world was subtly moving beneath my feet, something akin to the rocking of a ship but over more dimensions.
As the world bent and tipped, I couldn’t count the sides of the hallway because I lost focus. The sensation made me dizzy but only a touch.
Was it the world or was it me?
Oxygen levels analysis. My Crown brought up data showing the oxygen levels in my system. They weren’t dangerously low, but they had dipped significantly in the last few minutes.
I pulled up the interface for my viral mecha. A good number of them had gone idle after knitting up my injuries from earlier.
Without Anya or a Caduceus, however, I was uncertain of what to tell them to do. Yes, I needed my oxygen levels moderated but by how much? What rate of supplementation worked for the local axiomatic set up? I had no way to know.
It was a lost, helpless feeling.
As a shot in the dark, I set several groupings to producing oxygen and removing any buildup of lactic acid in my muscles or carbon dioxide in my blood. I quickly reviewed the system standard entries on hypoxia, and wished, just for a moment, that I had actually taken the Caduceus module just so I could understand exactly what was happening.
“Like I’d just understand how to use that thing, after one time.” I chuckled. Caduceus was something that had a long learning curve.
After watching the system readouts for a moment, I decided that my current mecha settings would do for now. I could adjust them as needed later.
The world still tilted, so that wasn’t just my mind. The space here was different somehow, thicker and holding an odd shape that I couldn’t quite perceive. Knowing I had done all that I could, I slipped forward into the misty shadows.
The tunnel was long and straight, but I couldn’t see far in front of myself due to the mist. Its light obscured more than it revealed, by blanketing everything in a uniform, dim glow. I reached out and ran a hand along the wall as I walked. It both helped with my slight dizziness and made certain that I was properly tracking the hallway.
Very soon, I was glad I had. The passageway branched off into another four separate tunnels after about a hundred meters. It seemed as if the branches were at right angles to each other, even though that was impossible, yet every corner I touched registered as a right angle.
I stopped for a moment and checked my oxygen levels. They were within parameters, but my Crown showed that I was overproducing monoamines and thyroid stimulating hormones. Really, that was far beyond my expertise to do anything about, but I allocated some more of my mecha toward stabilizing my optimum baselines. That was all I knew to do.
I kept my hand on the wall as I turned down the first of the branches.
Soon I came to the first of the hatches. It was large, like the kind of door one might see in a noir bank-robbery flick. The primary differences were that it was set in the floor and that I could not find an obvious handle. It looked to be made of worked metal, brushed steel and brass, and seemed completely different than the odd not-quite-iron walls of the tunnels.
That caught me for a moment. I peered around the edge of the hatch, looking for a stamp or company name. There. It was made by a Sadhana Corporation. Definitely produced in the Rational world and then brought here.
Still, no handle. Did it only open from the opposite side?
I checked my time. I had been in for nine minutes. I only had another seven or so before the emitter would begin having a physiological effect. That hadn’t been a problem when I believed I was going to come in and step right back out. But now, that was impossible. I only guessed that I had fallen ten feet when I stepped through, it could have been fifteen or twenty. There was no ladder, no way back to Anya and Wyatt.
I powered the Wraith down. Best save it for an emergency. If I let my system rest for a bit, I could likely re-engage it for the full duration if I found any trouble.
As it was, I was only using it to hide from the nobody who seemed to be here.
No sooner had I made that decision then I heard a crushing, grinding sound down the passageway. It echoed hollowly and then seemed to lurch into a whirring roar. It was reminiscent of machinery but incredibly loud.
I crept forward, wincing at the sound, peering through the mist.
Soon I saw that my initial assessment was correct. There was machinery all along the edge of the hallway, turbines that pulled at convoluted systems of belts and enough dials and needles to recreate the inside of one of the early Apollo rockets. Interesting, there were no digital readouts, no computer screens or terminals. The technology was outdated and seemed to use gears and steam as often as not.
Soon, the hallway ended, opening into a slightly larger room. Here, every wall was covered in the clockwork machinery, looking in some instances as if different systems had been patched in over time. Grease dripped into shimmering pools on the floor, and where I looked, I could occasionally find serial numbers or manufacturer stamps on the equipment. Smoke and steam escaped from various valves, and I could smell burning oil in the air.
All of it was very mundane, Rational technology brought into an Irrational world.
I had been here for well over fifteen minutes now. This was the point where Anya and Wyatt would realize that something was wrong. I switched my Crown’s communication channels in case they stepped through. Like a walkie-talkie, this channel did not require the Lattice.
This is a comm check. Are there any Assets within my range? I knew the answer even as I linked. A very subtle sensation accompanied a connection, and here, there was nothing to connect to.
Only silence. Only loneliness.
I spent a moment recording a repeating general-purpose broadcast for any Assets who came within range and then muted the outflow on my end.
This is Michael Bishop, Asset 108. I am alive. My systems are currently operational. Atmospheric axioms are sub-Rational. Make certain that a Preceptor immediately gives you a reading before you proceed.
It would have to be enough.
I turned and walked back the way I had come, ready to explore another passage.
17
The second tunnel was very similar to the first, but it opened up sooner. Though it housed far more machinery, these machines were silent, dead as the grave. It didn’t seem as if there were any oil drippings on the ground near these, and the air didn’t smell of hot machinery and steam. All the dials were to one side, and none of the gears moved.
There was another hatch, however. This one was in the center of the machine room. It was slightly smaller than the first but was constructed in the exact same way. This passageway continued after the machine room, and there were three more of the hatches, hidden in the glowing mist.
I was searching for a handle, a switch, even a fucking doorbell when the link came.
Hoss, I assume that you’re still vertical since you’ve got that message runnin’. The message was a touch scratchy, not as clear as a Lattice-link, but just then it was like a raft to a drowning man.
I grinned. It always surprises me to be happy to hear from you, Wyatt.
Had to come. I could feel his grin over the link. Figgered whatever was keepin’ ya must be something you wanted to have all to yerself. You have an Irrat hottie somewhere in this hole?
I started to reply, but Anya cut in. I have ambient data. Several axiomatic strands are far sub-Rational. Clear the line for a moment, and I will send directives for your viral mecha.
Wyatt and I linked our assent at the same time. Clear/Understood. They seemed to come at the exact same time. Unlike a Lattice link, our secondary comms wouldn’t sequence our links and force th
em to make sense.
For a moment, there was only a series of high-pitched whines and seemingly random tones in my Crown. I pulled up my mecha interface and watched the parameters that Anya set. A few of them weren’t that different from my own, but she also had a unit of VM’s strengthening my neural pathways.
Interesting.
Do any of the local axioms interfere with our gear, Anya? I don’t want to find out that the disruptors don’t work, and that the Adept actually slows me down here, all at the exact wrong moment.
Your gear is fine, Michael, but Wyatt will have to recalibrate his baselines for the tangler.
How far afield are you, stranger? We gonna have to walk an hour to find you?
My eyes narrowed. How long have I been gone?
According to our systems, Michael, we last tracked you two hours forty-eight minutes ago. Anya paused. We would have been dispatched sooner, but the Designate wanted to get secondary protocols in place.
Wyatt cut in. Easy enough to see why you didn’t show. I’m only glad I didn’t land on Rosie when I came through.
Initial diagnostics seems to show no lasting damage to my systems, Anya continued. Although without the Lattice, my readings will be limited. We are without deep telemetry, and data on axiomatic weaving will not be uploaded. She paused. I show your systems are undamaged as well, Michael, although I would like to run a local check.
I’m not far. If you come forward the passageway will split. I’ll meet you there. I turned and headed back to the junction.
Wyatt gave me a big grin when I appeared through the mist. “I was afraid we’d lost you, Hoss.”
I grinned back. “Not yet. So far, the most dangerous thing here is boredom.”
It was an unwritten rule that, without the Lattice, we would be speaking more than linking. The secondary comm took far more energy than our typical Lattice communications, and we had no idea how long we would be here. Of course, the viral mecha could be tasked to create bioenergy, but we didn’t want to push things.