by Grant Fausey
“Is he dead?” asked the symbiont.
The sphere slipped across the floor into the bounty hunter’s hand, and immediately liquefied being absorbed into his fingertips. The bewildered scientist couldn’t believe her eyes; she was standing in the center of the room, everything around her suspended in time, yet the likeness at the rear of the tavern walked across the bar to stand before her.
“Safety protocols on,” said the researcher.
“Do you wish to discontinue retrieval?” responded the computer.
“No––” shouted the scientist. “I need to know the rest of the story.” The apparition nodded to the researcher.
“Who are you?”
“The name’s Crimson … Crimson Krydal Starr. Indigo was once my partner.”
“Then it’s your life I’m retrieving?” The holographic image rippled as if she was still a part of it.
“My life with Indigo.”
“Wait a minute,” insisted the researcher. There was a sense of movement, the clickety-clack of footsteps. Several unseen individuals scrambled across the platform above the laboratory. But that was impossible. But how was that possible? She looked up into the rain, realizing the reality of her situation had changed. She put her hand to her face, her fingers to her cheek. She was wet. She could feel the presence of the rain droplets hitting her face, the ground, even the water splattering across the floor. It was no longer a simulation.
TWENTY-ONE: Bancore and Creed
• • •
The flickering lights of a two-man transport filled to the brim with supplies and excavation tools, jetted along the banks of the Mannukan jungle, at high speed. Dublex Bancore, a big, burly man with a long nose, sharp smile and eyes barely visible behind the glare of wire-rim glasses, held on tight to the side-rail on the front passenger side door. His middle-aged assistant, a rather average looking individual with dark brown eyes, the physique of a fifty year old human, and big, bushy eyebrows, wiped his hand across his balding forehead, a clearly visible reflection in the professor’s oval eyeglasses. He handled the hover truck with the agility of a racecar driver, while Bancore tried to read their course off a map sketched in the corner of an ancient journal with a stick light. “Slow down, will you,” said Dublex Bancore. “You need to treat this terrain with respect!”
“Respect,” growled Travis Creed. He was in one of his moods. “I can’t stand the sight of this place anymore. The faster we get back to base, the sooner we can get off this rock. Why I came on this lousy expedition I’ll never know!” He didn’t want to hear the bantering about how fast he was going, or how far it was to the next watering hole. As far as he was concerned, the harder he pushed down on the accelerator, the better he liked it. Gunning the engine was one of his favorite past times, pushing the scientist deeper into the pleated cushion seat was one of life’s little pleasures. Nevertheless, the archeologist compensated, shifting his weight. The transport negotiated the winding course through the jungle, crosscutting the trail across a stone bridge, where it connected with the ancient ruins of the Templars Misue de Ales Mar on Shadiwe, a slippery rock gorge bordering the jungles along the Kalamarian Mountains. The hover truck lisped to one side then the other: definitely overloaded.
“You’re here for the money,” reiterated the burly little man. They were there to keep a tight rein on the future endowments of the Bancore-Creed Foundation, a self proclaimed depository that was as much trouble, as a full time job procuring the latest prospects on behalf of the Industrials. They were more than just corporate runners; they were entrepreneurs.
“Gamy,” said the professor. “Can’t you remember? We’re here to do whatever it takes to keep the company safe.” The driver glared back at his companion. “It’s what we do.”
“Awe––shut up, and hold on,” barked the truck driver pushing the scientist into his seat, restraining him as if he was a child. “I’m sick and tired of playing nursemaid to the future,” he told the professor. “When are we going to see some profit out of this venture?”
The truck bounced, sending a crate of supplies a half-meter into the air.
“Slow down, will you,” pleaded the professor, “before you get us both killed!”
“Gamy, Bancore, if the Industrials have anything to do with it, we’ll never see a nickel from this operation.” The vehicle roared across the jungle near the surface of a cobblestone runway, just ahead of where Relix and Tee had crossed earlier. “We’ve done it to ourselves,” admitted the driver. “We’ve used Indigo more than once to settle a score. They’ll do the same thing to us. They eliminate us, when this is all said and done.”
The old archeologist gripped the side rail, nearly bent the metal bar with the sheer force of his anxiety. “Salnex is smarter than that,” interjected the professor, maintaining his stature. “He’d never jeopardize his own future by eliminating his people in the past. There’s too much at stake for him to do that. He’s not that stupid.”
“Yes he is,” said Creed. The trucker couldn’t help but imagine the professor sitting there with a stake through his heart––anything to get him to shut up and quit bellyaching about slowing down. “Besides,” continued the driver, “we’re the ones with all the power. If he tries anything, we’ll retaliate. He knows that; it’s an eye for an eye in this world, you know?”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” said Bancore. The assistant wheeled the vehicle in the direction of the old archeologist’s pointer and pulled his foot off the accelerator, sobering as he idled the engine.
“Finally––” The professor groaned, adjusting his glasses.
“This could be serious.”
“Of course it’s serious!” Travis Creed pointed to a fuzzy image in the fog at the edge of the forest, just beyond the ruins. He stood up, but never looked over the windscreen.
“What the hell is that?” Creed stepped down off the transport, his mouth open, heart-pumping wildly.
“What are you talking about?” asked the professor. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Against the foggy outline of the forest was the shadowy impression of a mining rig. Its long metal fingers stretched out for at least a kilometer, burrowing deep into the landscape behind the rumble of powerful motors. The platform slammed into the planet’s crust, deploying its linkage and triangular shaped supports in a thunderous cloud of dust that hid the base of the structure. The bulk of the mainframe separated, expanding outward from the core of the platform to the rattle of whining gears running in opposite directions; each designed to make the most of the mining operation.
“Have you ever seen such a sight,” conceded the scientist. He was truly excited.
“Yeah–” answered the driver, and I never hope I do again. Where the hell did that thing come from?” Creed cut him off, knowing full well it was something he was going to regret. “The damn thing just didn’t pop into existence, did it?”
“No idea,” said the professor. He took several steps then stopped, mesmerized by the sheer size of the complex. One thing was for sure; he wasn’t going to just stand around and wait. “Time for a little investigating of our own, don’t you think?”
“You got that right,” answered Creed. The trucker damn near fell on his face. His hand passed straight through the vehicle like it wasn’t there. He was frazzled. “Did you see that?”
“That’s not possible, is it?” The archeologist jockeyed for position, stepping around the front of the hover truck.
“Hell if I know …” answered Bancore, shrugging his shoulders.
“Check your damn book! See what it says about NOT being able to touch shit that’s right in front of you!”
“Could be a mirage,” groaned the professor. He couldn’t check anything. The journal was in the back seat of the truck under the water-cooler, along with their food and medical supplies. “Maybe it’s some kind of hallucination.”
“Hallucination my ass,” said Creed. He wasn’t in the mood for the professor’s antics. He wasn’t weaseling his way out of t
his one. There was no way it was a coincidence, or some sort of voodoo. Stranger things had happened to them. The assistant wanted answers. It didn’t take the professor long to stumble over something that wasn’t there, or run headlong into a low hanging branch.
“Whoa––” said the professor. “What the hell was that?”
“You okay, professor?” Creed reached down to help the archeologist up, but the professor was too busy rubbing his forehead. Whatever it was he’d stumbled upon, it wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but it was definitely worth investigating.
“What the hell was what?”
Creed grabbed his cohort by the arm and steadied him. He was a little lightheaded, and his words were slurred. “Bloody Hell!” shouted the professor. “Where did that freak’n beam come from?”
“Beam––what beam?” He was looking a little peaked himself. “I don’t see any beam.”
“Believe me … it’s there!” The professor pulled his sidearm. He didn’t see anything in the jungle that could harm him but, nevertheless, he reached up with the butt end of the revolver and smacked the jungle, hitting something solid.
“That beam,” he insisted.
“Huh––” Creed backed up. No point in getting hit with the butt end of a gun.
“Guess it’s only accessible from your side of the trail.” Bancore smacked the beam again, nearly flew through the airdrome himself. The archeologist grabbed the back of the trucker’s jacket and pulled him back.
“Thanks … that was close.” Creed ran his hand across the top of his head, looked at his fingers with concern, wondering if he might have injured himself. “No blood,” he said, relieved.
“You’ll live––” said the professor taking a leap of faith.
He was headed straight for the jungle.
“You can’t be serious,” shouted Creed. There was no way to know what’s on the other side of the portal.
“Don’t you hear it?” asked the professor. He stepped up to the edge of the portal and listened. “Aren’t you the tiniest bit curious?”
“What?” Travis Creed raised an eyebrow like an idiot.
“There’s something operating on the other side,” said the professor.
Creed did a roundabout. There was a slight rumble. “Could be miners,” he responded. “Machinery of some kind.”
“Found the edge,” said the professor, announcing his good fortune. Creed didn’t feel so lucky, but he took the professor hand anyway, when he extended it. The entrance ended abruptly on either side of the jungle.
“What if it’s some kind of trap?”
“The opening isn’t very big.” repealed Creed; his hand-eye coordination was badly affected by his confrontation with the beam. The air around him rippled like fingers in a pool of calm water, the interference setting the expanding ringlets waves in motion, as if a simulation. Bancore pulled his hand back and stepped through the opening.
“Awe crap!” said the assistant. There wasn’t much point in arguing; any concern for the future was negated. Bancore was gone; for all he knew the professor was on the Dunes of the Nasarrian plains, or in the belly of some gritty saltine monster on Purmanchew. Life, however, was an adventure, one that his heart truly desired.
Bancore emerged on the other side to find himself in a small passageway, half way between the edge of the jungle and an open doorway to a hidden laboratory. He half expected to find his just rewards, but instead found himself in an undeniably different world. “Travis …” he said; his voice an echo. The assistant heard his name reverberate, but couldn’t tell from which direction the voice came. From where he stood, it sounded like it was coming from everywhere. Not from somewhere on the other side of the doorway. However, it was the professor’s voice sure enough; at least, he was still alive.
“Well––” shouted Bancore, “are you coming?”
Creed didn’t consider himself brave, but courageous. He had undertaken a number of endeavors with the professor for purely scientific reasons. But stepping across dimensional portals wasn’t an everyday occurrence. Surviving them, however, seemed somehow appropriate. Even less likely, but the thrill was exhilarating.
“Professor,” said Creed. The archeologist stepped over the gooey remains of a failed experiment into the dark and emerged on the far side of the room from where Bancore had just been. Creed couldn’t help but notice his teeth chattering. It was frighteningly cold where he stood. He couldn’t help wonder if it was the doorway, or his fear of the unknown. Stepping across time and space, in the span of a heartbeat, with no recollection of the event, was a little disconcerting. The journey across the threshold was like standing in two places at the same time.
“Over here,” said Bancore. “There’s another entrance at the far end of the room.”
Travis Creed scanned his immediate surroundings with a cautious eye. They were underground, obviously far below the surface of whatever planet they were on. The fragrance was musty like the jungle, but had a tinge of sulfur in the heated dry air. Obviously, his shaking was from fear. The air was filtered from the caverns and was beginning to stink up the place. “We’re in some sort of a holographic laboratory,” announced the professor. He wanted him to know his observation right away, before an odd-looking piece of equipment turned, watching him from a distance. Nevertheless, Bancore’s warning was too late. An apparatus was already interested in his every move. Travis couldn’t help but feel uneasy. The place smelled of death. Now, he was being watched.
The underground laboratory was part of a much larger facility: An entire network of underground amenities that spanned sixteen battlements, overlooking a chamber the size of a Canyon with interconnecting walkways made from stone bridged linking the parapets to small alcoves on the other side of the dig, presenting an unprecedented fortification. But what were the soldiers of this doomed society defending. It was definitely a mystery. Bancore wondered if he had stumbled upon a closely guarded secret? There were streams of iron ore everywhere. The top of the chamber stretched at least a kilometer above their heads, running parallel from a sea of biomass to a single light source at the top of the great machine. The radiance of which, appeared to be a living thing. They were no longer on Myatek, but rather, a world with rich mineral deposits and reddish-orange soil. The architecture was astounding, an entire structure excavated to reveal a living organism. It was the archeological find of the century. The professor gasped, realizing the truth of the matter. He was holding the future in the palm of his hands. If only he could see everything.
Bancore motioned to his companion, genuinely afraid. He wondered what kind of creatures could possibly survive in such a cold, dark place, hidden from the rest of the world? “It’s some sort of mining operation,” said Creed. The machinery was louder than before, more consistent, as if it was rising from the depths. Bancore heard the rumble, and the rhythmic vibrations had his attention. Creed subscribed to his theory. They were in a giant catacomb. The planet was hollow, echoing as if the noise came from below out of the depths, when in fact the screech of thunder echoed from overhead, rolling with the shrill of a thousand pile drivers into the depths of the planet’s core. The professor knew of no truer balance than life drawn from the blood of the human soul. For here was the source of the Industrial revolution. The core of simulated world was a living thing.
“Looks like everything I’ve ever dreamed of,” said the professor, nervously. “They’re excavating the past, or at least, exploring the possibilities.” Travis Creed had surmised as much. The threat was ethereal reaching out of some higher plane of existence with an acquired telekinetic ability they had never dreamed possible. Yet, it was a whisper in their minds; as if a thousand tiny voices had awakened to chatter amidst themselves. The impression was near chaos, hundreds of thousand of the thoughts bound together in a moment of time.
“I think it’s time to go professor,” said Creed.
“Can’t argue with that!” agreed Bancore. Whatever was down there, held captive in the molten
fabric of the mantle’s core was the essence of primordial life itself. Be it a miner, part rubble rat or a worker drone, he knew the flickering light of its existence would be beyond his comprehension. The scientist cocked his head, looked deep into the eyes of the beholder, seeing an odd-looking spidery contraption for what it was: A creature of cellular membrane, transmitting a high-pitched tone. Bancore covered his ears. His body tingled with a rush of adrenaline, a brush of air rushed past him to land on the catwalk. Creed spun around to face his assailant, and gasped. Neither direction looked safe. Whatever was down there was on its way up.
“Wait a minute,” shouted the professor. “I know this place. I’ve been here before.”
“What?” It was like something out of a nightmare. “Bugs––I hate bugs.” Bancore frantically tried to rid himself of his assailants, but the professor was covered in a hoard of microscopic pests, each hell-bent on his destruction.
“They’re everywhere!” shouted Creed, helpless to save him. “Run!”
“Save yourself!” Bancore went into a hysterical ritual of death. “It’s not a simulation––they’re changing history!”
“Oh, my God,” yelled Creed in a panic. “They’re harvesting the past, erasing us from history!”
The archeologist’s face went white, as if drained of every drop of blood, his stomach churning in unprecedented agony. The temporal runner felt the weight of the world lift from his shoulders, his body drawn away from the burden of life, only to be shocked back to realty; his body in a fight for life. His eyes bulged, swept away like dust in the wind.
TWENTY-TWO: The Fact of the Matter
• • •
The hi-tech examination table rumbled, pivoting downward to its resting place. The researcher felt a distinct thud! The bounty hunter smacked his head on a lower deck, landing on a square faced platform. Kala Nar slipped past him, maneuvering Indigo onto the hi-tech examination table in the center of the laboratory. There was little regard for his condition. Only the hiss of Anion’s disbelief rivaled the whine of the hydraulic machinery sealing the chamber. Kala Nar turned her attention to the researcher. “Computer …” queried the scientist, curiously. Still not certain of what exactly was going on. An electrical impulse raced across Indigo’s fingertips.